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java software naming question

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  java software naming question mcheung63@gmail.com - 2013-01-07 01:11 -0800
    Re: java software naming question "Aryeh M. Friedman" <Aryeh.Friedman@gmail.com> - 2013-01-07 01:21 -0800
    Re: java software naming question "Aryeh M. Friedman" <Aryeh.Friedman@gmail.com> - 2013-01-07 01:26 -0800
    Re: java software naming question Muco <muco@nomail.com> - 2013-01-07 20:38 +1100
      Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-07 11:12 -0800
    Re: java software naming question Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2013-01-07 07:03 -0800
      Re: java software naming question "Aryeh M. Friedman" <Aryeh.Friedman@gmail.com> - 2013-01-07 07:08 -0800
      Re: java software naming question Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-01-07 08:34 -0800
        Re: java software naming question Magnus Warker <magnus@mailinator.com> - 2013-01-07 18:26 +0100
          Re: java software naming question markspace <markspace@nospam.nospam> - 2013-01-07 10:54 -0800
            Re: java software naming question "Chris Uppal" <chris.uppal@metagnostic.REMOVE-THIS.org> - 2013-01-07 19:41 +0000
              Re: java software naming question Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2013-01-07 17:13 -0500
                Re: java software naming question Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-01-07 18:44 -0800
                Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-07 19:37 -0800
          Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-07 19:33 -0800
            Re: java software naming question Mark <i@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.invalid> - 2013-01-08 09:39 +0000
              Re: java software naming question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-01-08 20:26 -0500
                Re: java software naming question Mark <i@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.invalid> - 2013-01-09 09:32 +0000
                  Re: java software naming question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-01-09 18:41 -0500
                    Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-09 16:23 -0800
                      Re: java software naming question Mark <i@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.invalid> - 2013-01-10 09:44 +0000
                        Re: java software naming question lipska the kat <"nospam at neversurrender dot co dot uk"> - 2013-01-10 10:16 +0000
                          Re: java software naming question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-01-12 17:07 -0500
                        Re: java software naming question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-01-12 17:03 -0500
    Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-07 11:11 -0800
      Re: java software naming question lipska the kat <lipskathekat@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-01-07 19:48 +0000
      Re: java software naming question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-01-07 18:56 -0500
        Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-07 16:05 -0800
    Re: java software naming question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-01-07 18:55 -0500
    Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-07 18:04 -0800
      Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-07 18:33 -0800
        Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-07 19:57 -0800
          Re: java software naming question Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-01-07 20:11 -0800
          Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-07 23:05 -0600
            Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 09:40 -0800
              Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 11:18 -0800
                Re: java software naming question Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2013-01-09 11:59 -0800
                  Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 23:20 -0800
                    Re: java software naming question Stuart <DerTopper@web.de> - 2013-01-10 09:32 +0100
                Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-10 01:09 -0600
              Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-09 23:59 -0600
                Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 23:36 -0800
          Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-07 21:46 -0800
        Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-07 21:58 -0600
          Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-08 00:19 -0800
          Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-08 00:22 -0800
            Re: java software naming question "Aryeh M. Friedman" <Aryeh.Friedman@gmail.com> - 2013-01-08 00:30 -0800
              Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 09:41 -0800
              Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 10:51 -0800
                Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-09 23:27 -0600
            Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-08 07:07 -0800
              Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-08 09:31 -0600
                Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-08 07:36 -0800
            Re: java software naming question Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-01-08 08:47 -0800
              Re: java software naming question Stuart <DerTopper@web.de> - 2013-01-08 21:56 +0100
                Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-08 13:04 -0800
              Re: java software naming question Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org> - 2013-01-08 14:14 -0800
                Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-08 15:19 -0800
                Re: java software naming question Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-01-08 16:22 -0800
                Re: java software naming question Mark <i@dontgetlotsofspamanymore.invalid> - 2013-01-09 09:34 +0000
                Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 09:50 -0800
                  Re: java software naming question Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-01-09 10:10 -0800
                    Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 10:49 -0800
              Re: java software naming question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2013-01-08 20:37 -0500
          Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-08 00:26 -0800
            Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-08 07:12 -0800
              Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-08 09:27 -0600
                Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-08 07:32 -0800
                  Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 09:55 -0800
                    Re: java software naming question Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com> - 2013-01-09 12:53 -0800
                      Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 23:37 -0800
                Re: java software naming question Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2013-01-08 08:50 -0800
            Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-08 09:26 -0600
              Re: java software naming question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2013-01-09 09:59 -0800
                Re: java software naming question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2013-01-09 23:31 -0600
      Re: java software naming question "Aryeh M. Friedman" <Aryeh.Friedman@gmail.com> - 2013-01-08 00:24 -0800
    Re: java software naming question johnjagu25@gmail.com - 2013-01-08 08:39 -0800

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#21295

On Wed, 9 Jan 2013 16:23:07 -0800 (PST), Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com>
wrote:

>Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> Mark wrote:
>>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>Mark wrote:
>>>>> Actually you'd use LibreOffice now ;-)
>> 
>>>> Same price.
>> 
>>> Yes.  And is the same price as all open source software.
>> 
>> You are free to ask a million for whatever open source
>> software as long as you comply with the specific open source license.
>
>As does IBM, for example, with its mainframe Linux.
>
>Red Hat, Tivo. Cisco and many others have sold Linux or other OSS for money.
>
>The open-source software movement is very insistent that "free" means "Free as in speech, 
>not as in beer."
>
>You see this quote from the beginning of any effort to read about open-source software.
>
>So there is no reason for anyone to believe that open-source software implies no cost.

But there's never a need to pay for Open Source software since you can
grab the source code and build it yourself.

The cost generally can be justified for other services such as
support.
-- 
(\__/)  M.
(='.'=) If a man stands in a forest and no woman is around
(")_(") is he still wrong?

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#21297

On 10/01/13 09:44, Mark wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2013 16:23:07 -0800 (PST), Lew<lewbloch@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> Mark wrote:
>>>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>> Mark wrote:
>>>>>> Actually you'd use LibreOffice now ;-)

[snip]

>
> But there's never a need to pay for Open Source software since you can
> grab the source code and build it yourself.
>
> The cost generally can be justified for other services such as
> support.

Isn't there a difference between freeware which is free to use but not 
necessarily open source and open source software which isn't necessarily 
free ?

Is all open source software by implication free ?

lipska

-- 
Lipska the Kat©: Troll hunter, sandbox destroyer
and farscape dreamer of Aeryn Sun

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#21371

On 1/10/2013 5:16 AM, lipska the kat wrote:
> On 10/01/13 09:44, Mark wrote:
>> But there's never a need to pay for Open Source software since you can
>> grab the source code and build it yourself.
>>
>> The cost generally can be justified for other services such as
>> support.
>
> Isn't there a difference between freeware which is free to use but not
> necessarily open source and open source software which isn't necessarily
> free ?

Yes.

> Is all open source software by implication free ?

There is nothing in the open source definition that
prohibits charging for it.

And indeed some well-known open source software
is sold.

But since customer has a right to redistribute free if
they want to then just charging is not a good business
model.

So it is typical
- support
- release from open source license requirements (GPL and AGPL terms
   is considered unacceptable for some commercial usages)
that justifies the payment.

Arne

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#21370

On 1/10/2013 4:44 AM, Mark wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Jan 2013 16:23:07 -0800 (PST), Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>> Mark wrote:
>>>> Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>>> Mark wrote:
>>>>>> Actually you'd use LibreOffice now ;-)
>>>
>>>>> Same price.
>>>
>>>> Yes.  And is the same price as all open source software.
>>>
>>> You are free to ask a million for whatever open source
>>> software as long as you comply with the specific open source license.
>>
>> As does IBM, for example, with its mainframe Linux.
>>
>> Red Hat, Tivo. Cisco and many others have sold Linux or other OSS for money.
>>
>> The open-source software movement is very insistent that "free" means "Free as in speech,
>> not as in beer."
>>
>> You see this quote from the beginning of any effort to read about open-source software.
>>
>> So there is no reason for anyone to believe that open-source software implies no cost.
>
> But there's never a need to pay for Open Source software since you can
> grab the source code and build it yourself.

If some software is open source, then if X gives Y a copy of
binary then Y has a right to a copy of the source and Y also
has a right to distribute both binary and source. But neither
X nor Y has any obligation to distribute binary or source to Z.

This is mostly a theoretical point.

Arne

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#21161

On Monday, January 7, 2013 1:11:44 AM UTC-8, mche...@gmail.com wrote:
>    My name is Peter, Asisn, In internet, western people love to name their software with a "s" ending,
> suchs as : windows, google docs.
>    What is the reason? Is it easier to pronounce with a "s" sound? 

"Windows" and "Google Docs" are trademarked names, so that's why we pronounce the "s". 

If the product names were "Window" and "Google Doc" we wouldn't.

If my name were "James", you'd pronounce the "s" at the end. My name is "Lew", so you don't.

> If my software doesn't end with a "s", will western people think it is hard to say that word?

Which peoples do you include as "Western"?

I have no problem pronouncing words that do not end in "s", and I'm from the United States.
For example, I find "Lew" very easy to pronounce.

-- 
Lew

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#21164

On 07/01/13 19:11, Lew wrote:
> On Monday, January 7, 2013 1:11:44 AM UTC-8, mche...@gmail.com wrote:
>>     My name is Peter, Asisn, In internet, western people love to name their software with a "s" ending,
>> suchs as : windows, google docs.
>>     What is the reason? Is it easier to pronounce with a "s" sound?
>
> "Windows" and "Google Docs" are trademarked names, so that's why we pronounce the "s".
>
> If the product names were "Window" and "Google Doc" we wouldn't.
>
> If my name were "James", you'd pronounce the "s" at the end. My name is "Lew", so you don't.
>
>> If my software doesn't end with a "s", will western people think it is hard to say that word?
>
> Which peoples do you include as "Western"?
>
> I have no problem pronouncing words that do not end in "s", and I'm from the United States.
> For example, I find "Lew" very easy to pronounce.

Hey Bloch you putz !

I wondered how long it would be before you slithered out from under your 
rock.

That was quite a tame put down compared to your usual vitriolic spew.

You mellowing in your old age ?

lipska

-- 
Lipska the Kat©: Troll hunter, sandbox destroyer
and farscape dreamer of Aeryn Sun

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#21173

On 1/7/2013 2:11 PM, Lew wrote:
> On Monday, January 7, 2013 1:11:44 AM UTC-8, mche...@gmail.com wrote:
>> If my software doesn't end with a "s", will western people think it is hard to say that word?
>
> Which peoples do you include as "Western"?
>
> I have no problem pronouncing words that do not end in "s", and I'm from the United States.
> For example, I find "Lew" very easy to pronounce.

I don't, but ...

:-)

Arne

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#21175

Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> Lew wrote:
>> I have no problem pronouncing words that do not end in "s", and I'm from the United States.
>> For example, I find "Lew" very easy to pronounce.
> 
> I don't, but ...
> 
> :-)

It's pronounced like the British slang word for the water closet: "loo".

-- 
Lew

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#21172

On 1/7/2013 4:11 AM, mcheung63@gmail.com wrote:
> My name is Peter, Asisn, In internet, western people love to name
> their software with a "s" ending, suchs as : windows, google docs.
> What is the reason? Is it easier to pronounce with a "s" sound? If my
> software doesn't end with a "s", will western people think it is hard
> to say that word?

Some end with a 's' - some don't.

Given that many use plural in their product naming and that such
ends with a 's', then the probability of product names ending
with a 's' is much higher than if it was random.

Arne

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#21179

On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 01:11:44 -0800 (PST), mcheung63@gmail.com wrote,
quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

> My name is Peter, Asisn, In internet, western people love to
 name their software with a "s" ending, suchs as : windows, google
docs.
>   What is the reason? Is it easier to pronounce with a "s" sound? 
If my software doesn't end with a "s", will western people think it is
hard to say that word?

S means plural.  Windows has many windows.

It some languages you don't specify the plurality  unless it is
important or unobvious. You might double the word, or use a
quantifier.

English is obsessed with plurality/number.  You can't say anything
without being specific. It is similarly obsessed with gender.
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Students who hire or con others to do their homework are as foolish 
as couch potatoes who hire others to go to the gym for them. 

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#21181

On Monday, January 7, 2013 6:04:09 PM UTC-8, Roedy Green wrote:
> English is obsessed with plurality/number.  You can't say anything
> without being specific. It is similarly obsessed with gender.

Unlike French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and a host of other languages, 
English does not have much in the way of feminine vs. masculine distinctions.

So how is that "obsessed with gender"?

Doesn't every language have a way of expressing "more than one"?

How can a language be "obsessed"?

-- 
Lew

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#21188

On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 18:33:47 -0800 (PST), Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>
>So how is that "obsessed with gender"?

Consider the sentence.

He made a pot of  Sumatran coffee.

She made a pot of Sumatran coffee.

I am constrained by English to specify the flavour of genitals of the
coffee maker even though it is completely irrelevant to the process of
making coffee.  That I call obsession with gender.

English has another obsession.  I discovered it when I learned
Esperanto which is even more obsessed.  TIME.  You can't talk about
anything happening without specifying past, present, future. You can
though say that something habitually happens, without specifying when.

You can in Chinese. If tense is important to be explicit, you add some
adverb.  E.g. I come tomorrow.

You notice Asian speakers, often say strange things like
my wife, he sick.
Frog die.
Please give 12 egg.

To them gender, tense, and plurality need not be specified. They are
implied.

Esperanto is like English in its concern with precise tense, gender
and plurality.  It has some other obsessions of its own, roughly
equivalent to direct/indirect object though it has many other uses.

I suppose Mandarin might become the next interlanguage as English
fades.  Bahasa Indonesia was an early attempt at an interlanguage
devised by traders moving between thousands of islands. It is easy to
pronounce, and has a  relatively simple grammar.
I don't know much about Mandarin other than the code I wrote at
http://mindprod.com/products.html#INWORDS to convert integers into
words, including Mandarin. It was the simplest of all languages I
tackled (Icelandic was the hairiest). I gather the difficulties are
pronunciation and the many many synonyms for the same word.
(Makes for great fun with puns).


-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Students who hire or con others to do their homework are as foolish 
as couch potatoes who hire others to go to the gym for them. 

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#21191

On Mon, 07 Jan 2013 19:57:59 -0800, Roedy Green
<see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote:

>On Mon, 7 Jan 2013 18:33:47 -0800 (PST), Lew <lewbloch@gmail.com>
>wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>>
>>So how is that "obsessed with gender"?
>
>Consider the sentence.
>
>He made a pot of  Sumatran coffee.
>
>She made a pot of Sumatran coffee.
>
>I am constrained by English to specify the flavour of genitals of the
>coffee maker even though it is completely irrelevant to the process of
>making coffee.  That I call obsession with gender.
>
>English has another obsession.  I discovered it when I learned
>Esperanto which is even more obsessed.  TIME.  You can't talk about
>anything happening without specifying past, present, future. You can
>though say that something habitually happens, without specifying when.

     And yet it misses a verb form for was and continues to be.  e.g.
          Q: At that time, who was the executive director?
          A: It was Fred.
If Fred is still the executive director, you can say
          A: It was and continues to be Fred.
but there is no one verb form for this.  I would like it.

>You can in Chinese. If tense is important to be explicit, you add some
>adverb.  E.g. I come tomorrow.
>
>You notice Asian speakers, often say strange things like
>my wife, he sick.
>Frog die.
>Please give 12 egg.
>
>To them gender, tense, and plurality need not be specified. They are
>implied.

     AIUI, if the number is stated, then the plural morpheme is not
used.  With plurality, it was already specified by "12".

>Esperanto is like English in its concern with precise tense, gender
>and plurality.  It has some other obsessions of its own, roughly
>equivalent to direct/indirect object though it has many other uses.

     I prefer to be able to not specify.  I have a private shorthand.
In it, "e" is the third-person, singular, animate pronoun.  I can
specify the sex by adding a flag, but I rarely do.

>I suppose Mandarin might become the next interlanguage as English
>fades.  Bahasa Indonesia was an early attempt at an interlanguage
>devised by traders moving between thousands of islands. It is easy to
>pronounce, and has a  relatively simple grammar.
>I don't know much about Mandarin other than the code I wrote at
>http://mindprod.com/products.html#INWORDS to convert integers into
>words, including Mandarin. It was the simplest of all languages I
>tackled (Icelandic was the hairiest). I gather the difficulties are
>pronunciation and the many many synonyms for the same word.
>(Makes for great fun with puns).

     There are approximately 1,600 Chinese syllables.  That is
considering tone.  If you do not consider tone, then there are about
500.  English has about 144,000 different syllables.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

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#21193

On 1/7/2013 9:57 PM, Roedy Green wrote:
> I am constrained by English to specify the flavour of genitals of the
> coffee maker even though it is completely irrelevant to the process of
> making coffee.  That I call obsession with gender.

The proper way to put it is that English lacks a third-person singular 
gender-neutral personal pronoun (quite a mouthful). Grammatical gender 
is a relatively common concept (pervasive in the Indo-European tree in 
particular), and appears to be quite universal for most agglutinative 
languages.

> English has another obsession.  I discovered it when I learned
> Esperanto which is even more obsessed.  TIME.  You can't talk about
> anything happening without specifying past, present, future. You can
> though say that something habitually happens, without specifying when.

It's not an obsession, strictly speaking. Often times, there exists a 
form where one inflection is the default; this is the notion of 
grammatical marking. If we consider gender for a moment, if I were to 
discuss an actor, that tends to refer to an unknown person who may be 
male or female, despite "actor" being a male version of the term. Only 
if I use the female version "actress" would I definitely be referring to 
a female; the female version is marked (it conveys additional 
information). Similarly, tense in English can be unmarked: if I say "I 
work for a living", that is actually ambiguous about time (it implies 
that it happens on a consistent basis, but is ambivalent about if I am 
presently in an action or not); compare that to "I am working for a living."

You may complain abut it being an obsession, but grammar and redundancy 
in agreement do serve a useful purpose in that it allows for information 
to be gleaned better from partial sources. Consider instead the trouble 
of trying to work out what's happening in this sentence: "And when he 
saw that he prevailed not against him..." There are two people A and B, 
both male, and it requires a lot of context to work out if it should be 
A/A/B or if it should be A/B/A.

> Esperanto is like English in its concern with precise tense, gender
> and plurality.  It has some other obsessions of its own, roughly
> equivalent to direct/indirect object though it has many other uses.

Esperanto is effectively a creole of various Indo-European languages, 
and can be loosely described as speaking Latin words in a Slavic accent 
with a basically Indo-European grammar system. English has a peculiarly 
weak grammar (given its history) as a result of several invasions of its 
islands by peoples from different regions of Europe.

> I suppose Mandarin might become the next interlanguage as English
> fades.  Bahasa Indonesia was an early attempt at an interlanguage
> devised by traders moving between thousands of islands. It is easy to
> pronounce, and has a  relatively simple grammar.

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, which is very difficult to master 
for those whose language trees are not tonal, and its orthographic 
complexity makes English's mess look simple. Given the pride many 
Chinese have in having a hard-to-learn language, I doubt that Mandarin 
Chinese will become a working lingua franca in the future.

-- 
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not 
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

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#21252

On Mon, 07 Jan 2013 23:05:15 -0600, Joshua Cranmer
<Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone
who said :

> Given the pride many 
>Chinese have in having a hard-to-learn language, I doubt that Mandarin 
>Chinese will become a working lingua franca in the future.

English is pretty hard to pronounce and is quite irregular. That did
not stop it becoming the defacto world language.  That happened not
because of any features of the language, but because of the success of
the British Empire.

Mandarin might succeed for the same reason.

I did some digging on computerised typesetting in Chinese just as
electronic typesetting in English was getting off the ground. I went
to visit a Chinese newspaper where women were keying into a DOS app.
The speed was blinding.  It required memorising numbers for words. 
There were dozens of schemes for keying, all requiring much more skill
than we have with QWERTY.  It would be interesting to learn how it
shook down.  Today, even my own website can appear in Chinese by
clicking a Google Translate button at the top of the page.  We may
avoid the need for an interlanguage.
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Students who hire or con others to do their homework are as foolish 
as couch potatoes who hire others to go to the gym for them. 

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#21263

On Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:40:47 -0800, Roedy Green
<see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

>That happened not
>because of any features of the language, but because of the success of
>the British Empire.

Once it became the interlanguage, it start evolving very rapidly as
new technical terms were added.  It has a huge vocabulary compared
with many other languages.  That helps keep it as the interlanguage.

It also likes to be specific.  Not leaving much up to interpretation
is great for science and business but not so great for Zen poetry.

One of the most fascinating books I ever read was Steven Pinker's The
Language Instinct: how the mind creates language, about how languages
evolve.
http://mindprod.com/book/9780060958336.html

One of the things I think about every once in a while is what would be
the characteristics of a ideal interlanguage. I explored Esperanto. It
has had lots of time to catch on, but has not.  I explore why in my
essay on it.  http://mindprod.com/esperanto/esperanto.html

I am also interested in how you might use teams of computer
programmers who do not all speak English.  I envisage some SCIDs that
greatly tighten up the ability of programmers to track what others are
doing and to decouple how the program is displayed from how it is
stored.

-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Students who hire or con others to do their homework are as foolish 
as couch potatoes who hire others to go to the gym for them. 

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#21267

On 1/9/2013 11:18 AM, Roedy Green wrote:
...
> I am also interested in how you might use teams of computer
> programmers who do not all speak English.  I envisage some SCIDs that
> greatly tighten up the ability of programmers to track what others are
> doing and to decouple how the program is displayed from how it is
> stored.
>

In practice, I've met many programmers who could discuss any programming
issue in English, without being fluent in English in general.

During one meeting, in Zurich, we went out to a restaurant for lunch.
The people who had no trouble discussing interrupts and terminals could
not help me work out what the menu said. They did not know the English
terms for foods or cooking methods.

On the other hand, the waiter could explain the menu in English.

I suspect the world contains many people who know the subset of English,
especially technical terminology, that applies to their own field.

Patricia

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#21287

On Wed, 09 Jan 2013 11:59:29 -0800, Patricia Shanahan <pats@acm.org>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>In practice, I've met many programmers who could discuss any programming
>issue in English, without being fluent in English in general.

Back in the 60s I studied organic chemistry. Our lab instructor was
German and told us that most of the interesting work in organic
chemistry was published in German. We would simply have to learn
enough German to make sense of it. To my surprise, it was not that
difficult. I gather the same is true for English and computer
programming.
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products http://mindprod.com
Students who hire or con others to do their homework are as foolish 
as couch potatoes who hire others to go to the gym for them. 

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#21291

On 01/10/13 Roedy Green wrote:
> Back in the 60s I studied organic chemistry. Our lab instructor was
> German and told us that most of the interesting work in organic
> chemistry was published in German.

Hard to believe nowadays. I rather do hope that those articles have been 
translated properly (not some automatic Google-translation) to English 
by now.

 > We would simply have to learn
> enough German to make sense of it. To my surprise, it was not that
> difficult. I gather the same is true for English and computer
> programming.

That reminds me of the episode of Feynman's "Surely You're Joking, Mr. 
Feynman!" book, where he tries to learn Portugese and is able to talk to 
a dentist (?) without much problems because all the domain-specific 
vocabulary is basically the same in almost all Latin-based languages. 
However, he couldn't understand a single word of what people talked 
about in the streets.

Viele Grüße,
Stuart

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#21284

On 1/9/2013 1:18 PM, Roedy Green wrote:
> On Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:40:47 -0800, Roedy Green
> <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
> someone who said :
>
>> That happened not
>> because of any features of the language, but because of the success of
>> the British Empire.
>
> Once it became the interlanguage, it start evolving very rapidly as
> new technical terms were added.  It has a huge vocabulary compared
> with many other languages.  That helps keep it as the interlanguage.

English's rich vocabulary has more to due with its invasions in the 
Middle Ages than changes since the 19th century, although the lack of a 
central authority that tries to control the language probably helps 
absorption of new terminology more readily. Technical terms tend to be 
exchanged between languages largely as direct transliterations, so they 
don't really count for a rich vocabulary.

> It also likes to be specific.  Not leaving much up to interpretation
> is great for science and business but not so great for Zen poetry.

Yet Lobjan never caught on for some reason.

> One of the things I think about every once in a while is what would be
> the characteristics of a ideal interlanguage. I explored Esperanto. It
> has had lots of time to catch on, but has not.  I explore why in my
> essay on it.  http://mindprod.com/esperanto/esperanto.html

Looking at your essay on it, there are several inaccuracies:
1. Chinese characters are not mutually intelligible between Japanese, 
Korean, and Chinese, or even the various dialects of Chinese (Cantonese 
and Mandarin in particular). A better relationship is like the Greek and 
Latin alphabets: the Latin alphabet directly descended from the Greek 
one, and you can sometimes change the two sets and not notice, but there 
are definitely cases where you can't. This is why the CJK Han 
unification in Unicode was very controversial.

2. Discussing "words" in the context of multiple languages is 
inaccurate, so comparing wpm of Chinese IME versus English isn't useful, 
especially when you claim later that you could type Chinese characters 
via their English equivalents for an IME.

3. The point about radicals letting you sometime infer meaning is like 
the claim that sign language is intuitive because it's visual: it works 
rather less well than most supporters claim when you go and measure it 
(confirmation bias).

4. English is also moderately agglutinative. Consider the word 
"antidisestablishmentarianism" and how many roots are in that word. Or 
more useful words in modern discourse like nanotechnology.

5. Your point about "unifying Asian languages" flies rather greatly in 
the face of what I know about East Asian history and smacks more of 
Chinese propaganda than truth (see my point about number 1).

6. You imply a ranking of languages by total fluent speakers but give a 
listing of what appears to be languages by native, first-language speakers.

7. It is probably not a matter of time until the US is predominantly 
Spanish speaking. The most recent demographic trends, for example, show 
greater increase in Asian-descent populations than Hispanic.

I'm too tired to give a full explanation of why I think Esperanto 
failed, but the salient points I believe are the following:

1. It's a constructed language, so every fault that it has is less 
excusable than native languages. These faults include, but are not 
limited to, grammatical gender, agreement, phonological complexity, 
orthographic strictures, inflection-versus-agglutination, and choice of 
roots for word.

2. Internal warfare about degree of reform of the language (cf., Ido 
reforms).

3. The general decline of Western Europe in the early 20th century, 
relative to the United States and the USSR changed the position of 
languages in Europe from being a family of roughly balanced powers (UK, 
France, Germany) whose citizenry were apt to be polylingual to one of 
two poles dominated by very powerful monolingual large countries (the US 
and the USSR). Polylingual creoles just didn't have as much utility at 
that point.

> I am also interested in how you might use teams of computer
> programmers who do not all speak English.  I envisage some SCIDs that
> greatly tighten up the ability of programmers to track what others are
> doing and to decouple how the program is displayed from how it is
> stored.

As someone who tries not to be monolingual, I still see programming as 
being basically monolingually English, for the simple reason that there 
needs to be a common language to specify, design, and implement APIs in. 
That language is English for historical reasons. And before you suggest 
machine translation, I will point out that APIs are places where 
precision in language is necessary, and machine translation has yet to 
be able to translate text (especially the kind of noisy text that you'd 
find in programs and their API documentation) to anywhere near that kind 
of precision and is unlikely to do so in the next quarter-century.

-- 
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not 
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

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