Is Transcript's English orientation a plus or minus? (was Andy'scomments and positioning...)

[Kjetil Rå Hauge]

>On 2/9/04 8:02 AM, "Dar Scott" <dsc at swcp.com> wrote:
>I was wonder that myself. If you were going to write for, say, Japanese
>users, instead of
>
>set the a of b to c
>
>you would say
>
>b no a wo c ni settei
>
>The grammar is practically opposite.
>
>It would be nice to also support a JavaScript-like:
>
>b.a = c
>
>notation
>

Fascinating. Let's compare with Turkish:

>set the a of b to c

Japanese:

>b no a wo c ni settei

Turkish:

b'nžn a'sž c olacak/olur/olmalž/olsun -- or whatever

>It would be nice to also support a JavaScript-like:
>
b.a = c

... while the Turkish would support

b.a c =

.. which is, if I am not mistaken, reminiscent of 
"Polish notation" in logics. Applescript already 
has  French  and Japanese variants of its 
English-like syntax, I believe. But would it make 
learning easier for Japanese and Turkish 
programmers if the programming language syntax 
was closer to the constituent order (aka word 
order) of their native language? I am not sure. 
Most Germans write English quite well without the 
verb at the end of the sentence to put, don't 
they?
-- 
--- Kjetil Rå Hauge, U. of Oslo. Tel. +47/22856710, fax +47/22854140
--- (this msg sent from home, +47/67148424, fax +1/5084372444)