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0 pointsaleph_minus_one1y ago0 comments

> Hence why most keywords and variable names (a hard part of computer science) are in simple English and it is considered a net positive.

As I'm not a native English speaker, I disagree. I learned programming long before I got decent in English, and even today I just consider the English keywords in programming languages to be some "abstract mathematical concept" that by mere coincidence is named after some real, existing English word. Even today, being somewhat decent in English, I stil think this way when I see program code.

I actually would insist that this is a much more useful way to think about good programming, since this way you have no difficulties to ask yourself all the time whether it would make sense to replace some "English-named" concept by something more useful, but which has no analogue in the English language (or any other natural language).

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llm_trw1y ago· 1 in thread

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kmstout1y ago

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tgv1y ago

There have been studies (in the 80s or 90s, I never wrote down references, unfortunately, but they probably involved lexical priming) that support that idea. They suggest that English keywords get a meaning of their own for non-native speakers.

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