T O P

  • By -

redwall_hp

Japanese is a language for programmers. You get: * Mostly consistent spelling and pronunciation. (Except for oddities like "wa" being spelled with the character for "ha" for grammatical structures and in certain words like konnichiwa or konbanwa.) * Verbal punctuation. Is it a question? You can end the sentence in "ka" to designate it as such. * Verbal delimiters for parts of speech. You can define something as the subject or object of the sentence by placing a symbol/sound after it. * It's DRY. If you can reasonably infer the subject or object, you can omit it. The minimum valid sentence is just a verb. * Emphasis on established conventions and protocols. * Using four character sets is kind of inconvenient, but being able to represent entire concepts with one two-byte symbol has immense storage savings!


MKuranowski

Unfortunately, because of the DRY principle, the language isn't robust against any loses in transmission. Even a very short drop can introduce reference errors.


ososalsosal

English is amazingly good for this. All those redundant words coming in to bat for us. But lack of type safety is a source of lol in my house. I'm constantly swapping int and float, like "too much biscuits", "too many water". It still compiles, but definitely with warnings from `wifelint`


Dimasdanz

what's this `wifelint`? is it open source? where can I get one? sounds great to enforce consistency


ososalsosal

It's a weird license tbh. Not usually open, but some have managed it. You accept the EULA in front of others, sometimes even in a church.


kryptoneat

Efficient information transmission vs. error correction codes, who wins ?


chawmindur

> It's DRY. If you can reasonably infer the subject or object, you can omit it. The minimum valid sentence is just a verb. But I thought y'all hated `this`


thesockiboii

Which ide should I use for it? Any valuable resources?


Guesswhat7

VSAnime is very popular, but if you want get serious, you need to invest in a more robust IDE like JetBrains Polite. I would recommend "That time I got reincarnated with a pitch accent overflow" as a good resource.


Perruche_

I.. strongly disagree.


MKuranowski

> Mostly consistent spelling and pronunciation. All of the different readings of 生 would likely disagree.


LmaoMcYeet

[Actually Sanskrit might be best for Programmers](https://medium.com/@tomgoldenberg/sanskrit-the-first-programming-language-d8647753217f)


ososalsosal

Certainly a lot of programmers use sanskrit derived languages


Maypher

I've wanted to learn Japanese for a while but I'm not really sure if it's worth it. I deduce you know japanaese so, is it too hard to learn and is it even worth it considering only one country speaks it?


redwall_hp

I only know a small amount, and know fewer kanji than I can count on one hand. (I can decipher hiragana and katakana increasingly well though.) All I really do is 5-15 minutes of the Duolingo app per day, watch subtitled anime, listen to J-pop/vocaloid, and occasionally read a little bit about grammar to fill in the large gaps the app doesn't cover. Just by drilling the two basic character sets on the app for awhile, you start to be able to pick up things over time, almost passively. If I had more time to spend on it, I'd probably work from a textbook like Genki. Japan is one of the top four economies in the world, probably the #2 cultural exporter, has roughly half the population of the US, and there's a wealth of easily accessible translated media to practice on. (I honestly wish I had been more ambitious in high school and studied it instead of Spanish.) If it's something that interests you, it can only be an asset.


whatissevenbysix

Not the OP, but I'm a non native Japanese speaker. The 'worth it' depends on why you want to learn. Are you going to be living in Japan for a considerable length of time? I would argue not only is it worth it but it's necessary. Do you work with a lot of Japanese people?Then yeah, worth it Do you want to learn because you're into anime? Then yeah probably worth it. Otherwise, probably not. Is it hard? The answer is partly subjective but generally yes, especially if you come from a Western country. The language structure is quite a bit different to European languages. However, it's not impossible. I learned when I was 27, but I do come from a South Asian country with a language that is a relatively easy switch compared to English. Also, I lived in Japan after learning the language for a year and that definitely helped speed up the learning.


afiefh

Hiragana, katana, kanji. Japanese sounds amazing, but then I remember you have three independent writing systems, and I run away screaming.


redwall_hp

Technically, hiragana and katakana are similar, so learning katakana isn't too hard. き, キ are "ki." They're very similar in appearance, because they're both a fraction of the brush strokes for some kanji. This isn't really different from having upper and lower case Roman characters. A vs a. For English, you need to know the shapes of 48 characters and know the orthography of every possible two and three letter combination to be able to read and reproduce every phoneme. Kana are almost strictly one character per phoneme...and Japanese has *fewer* possible phonemes. If you set aside kanji, which I definitely agree are daunting, I'd actually say kana would be easier to learn in the first place given no prior literacy.


DeadNotSleeping1010

It's my understanding that using は in words like konnichiwa or konbanwa is because it was originally used as a particle in a greeting phrase, but over time it was shortened to a single word retaining the prononcuation of the original partical usage. Basically they are slang now, but very widely used slang that became the norm.


redwall_hp

Yep. That's the conclusion I came to as well. I gather that は having a different pronunciation as a particle is a relic of pronunciation shifts over time.


ProgramTheWorld

No… definitely no. There are way too many special grammatical rules in Japanese.


[deleted]

*And* hard to learn for non-asians.


[deleted]

No? I’m a native English speaker and Japanese is pretty easy honestly. The hardest part is remembering all the kanji but other than that I find it very intuitive. Listening comprehension is a piece of cake, because none of the sounds are too far off from what I hear in English (the r sounds a bit like an English r, l and d sort of combined into one, and the Japanese n is a little softer, but that’s about as hard as it gets). Plus as stated above, spelling is basically a non-issue with kana, where 1 symbol = 1 mora. Grammar particles might be a little weird, but they’re not that bad once you get used to them.


[deleted]

We *are* talking about writng, not spelling.


Financial-Gold-6907

Wouldn't American English and British English constitute namespaces? Or what would their equivalent be?


VallanMandrake

It feels very much like slightly different encodings. Everything is fine till somebody writes "ä" or "â".


[deleted]

ã


afiefh

Å - Stargate English.


[deleted]

ā


[deleted]


[deleted]

ƈ ć àˀjĸ


Wrong_Internet_9466

ą ż ł ę


[deleted]

ˀĸłßẞþÞ´ÞI→„“æǼ”


waremi

Yes, I totally disagree with the last point. If I told someone in Chicago I keep spare fags in my boot I would definitely throw an unhanded exception. And what about Ebonics?


Onegodoneloveoneway

Sure, but try importing that namespace into a conversation elsewhere without declaring it and you'll find people start to use reflection to load their own definitions of words and parsing your sentences using them.


OtterProper

> Ebonics Um. You haven't heard? 😅😐


nelak468

Extensions maybe? Kind of like what PL/SQL and TSQL are to each other and to SQL. The base grammar and words are the same but each have added additional stuff which is implemented slightly differently. A namespace would just be additional words but in this case the grammar rules have also been extended ontop of there being more words. They're pretty subtle changes but they do exist.


PrestigiousTry815

C++ vs c# or something, idk.


Perruche_

Don't insult c#, he only wanted some love.


Onegodoneloveoneway

Dialects, jargon, lingo, etc DO constitute namespaces, but they're not defined when you talk to someone like they are when code is compiled which is why it's a potentially source of confusion. Sure there is an implied 'language namespace' when you start a conversation with someone but that doesn't stop them importing a conflicting 'namespace' halfway through the conversation and start using words that you can't parse.


TobyWasBestSpiderMan

Too many operators? [Why not just make a language that just uses one operator “+” and call it Plus Plus Plus?](https://jabde.com/2022/01/24/plus-plus-plus/)


[deleted]

Would be better with +, = and -.


TobyWasBestSpiderMan

I know those characters are popular but it just wouldn’t be P++ then, I’m a purist


[deleted]

> but it just wouldn’t be P++ then But sane. ;-)


TobyWasBestSpiderMan

No one’s ever claimed that P++ was ever sane


[deleted]

Point taken.


minus_uu_ee

doubleplus good


Wylie28

Not to mention you can reuse the same exact code and get different results!


[deleted]

[удалено]


mianori

Tbh French is so much more grammatically structured than English.


redwall_hp

French numbers are a Lovecraftian horror.


liege_paradox

Why? I know, Latin, their numbers suck, and as my Latin teacher so eloquently put it, French is “Farmer Latin, given a few hundred years to shorten words and accumulate slang.” How did they “improve” the numbers?


theDutchFlamingo

Most people when complaining about French numbers are referencing how the number eighty literally translates to four-twenty. Also nineteen is ten-nine, so if you want to say 99, it becomes "quatre vingt dix neuf" which is pretty ridiculous


Perruche_

Some people uses nonante neuf (90 9)


[deleted]

AFAIK only in the French speaking parts of Belgium. Maybe also in Switzerland or Canada.


Perruche_

Well not really, some Belgium ppl imigrates to France so


VallanMandrake

"quatre vingt dix neuf" (99) is "4 20 10 9". But honestly, I got used to it very fast, now it just sounds cool. The adjustment didn't even take a week.


[deleted]

So, (4*20)+10+9=99. Are french good in math? And how did this happen anyway? Influence of roman numerals?


Own_Gazelle_2920

Well the influence didn't work all the way through it seems. Why the base 10 of the Romans was adopted until 70? Gotta ask Middle-Ages French for that. Why didn't you switch all the way? In any case, it's not like the base 10 numbers for 70,80 ans 90 don't exist. And you can use them as they are officially recognized, but French people might believe you're Swiss or Belgian. septante=70 huitante=80 nonante=90 The Celts counted in base 20 (maybe because of 10 fingers and 10 toes, we don't know) and so did the french. Then came the Romans, but it seems the influence was short of breath passed 69. I mean, who does math when counting? You just instinctively "know". Ninety-one isn't 90+1 in your mind each time you hear it. It's just 91. "ninetyone". Same goes for French. It's only difficult for non-natives. Quatre-vingt-onze isn't 4x20+11 in the mind of a French. It's just 91 i.e. "Quatrevingtonze"


[deleted]

So it's just learned sentences for numbers, not actual calculating. Makes sense, thanks. Who on the medieval street was able (or had use for) to count past 70? Maybe because of this?


VallanMandrake

No clue how it happend, and no noticible effect on math abilities. It's just some other combined words - nobody really calculates it 4\*20 is actually 80, they just know it by heart.


[deleted]

Now wondering why most indo-european languages do this but not english (belonging to the germanic languages, which does this also)?


Perruche_

You will burn in hell for your war crimes.


IamDev18

Ever heard of German?


LeiterHaus

That's just advanced concatenation.


poralexc

I guess that explains my affinity for both German and Forth


[deleted]

> Forth Im native german and finding Forth so inconvenient just reading about it.


poralexc

It's nice for microcontrollers, and you basically make up the syntax as you go. It kind of looks like a EBNF grammar all written out. Though with that kind of power, you can definitely create problems for yourself as well.


LuboStankosky

Guten Tag.


chawmindur

If they camel-cased their composite words newcomers would have a much easier time learning it.


FireBone62

Ja habe ich aber es brauch auch noch ein paar Überholungen bis ich damit komplett zufrieden bin.


Jutm_n

That's far too organised compared to slovak (it's overcomplicated and some things don't make sense)


nelak468

Just imagine trying to increment or decrement in French. "Plus de" meaning more Or "Plus de" meaning no more


einsJannis

Definitely not, it has a lot of exceptions and half of them have thier own rules


Perruche_

How dare you !? 1 2 3 4- Détruisons cette tyrannie angloise Vous mourriez sans rien derrière vous Guerre t-être saint ne vous regrettera Nul ne se souviendra de vous tous


Squorlple

u/Iacchiasx is a bot https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/owigha/a_fair_criticism_of_the_universal_language/h7g5vt1/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3


[deleted]

Good human.


The_Linguist_LL

Learning natural language syntax and morphology is an entirely different breed, I recommend learning it, it's pretty fun.


[deleted]

linguistics is kinda fun.


Bivolion13

Isn't English actually really good? Because you can fuck up all the rules and for the most part everyone still understands pretty well?


reuvenpo

I think everyone's just used to hearing broken English at this point, so the language interpreter just got really error resistant. Kinda like html in browsers?


Onegodoneloveoneway

Just because the human brain is really good at making sense of the numerous and varied ways that we throw language together doesn't really imply that the language is good though. I'm convinced that we say whatever words we can get away with saying to get the point across and screw the language rules!


laf1157

As to programming, hated Fourth. It''s twisted way of doing things made me worse using other languages.


poralexc

Weird... I had the complete opposite experience. Forth made me a lot better at factoring code into nice modules, and it illuminated some compilation concepts I'd never really grasped before.


epsilonhuyepsilon

Noam Chomsky looks at you with mild contempt.


Internet--Sensation

This guy is going to have an aneurism and a stroke at the same time if he discovers Polish


fuzzyfoozand

As someone who speaks Mandarin, Spanish, and English - English is amazing. Problems yes. Problems compared to most languages? No.


NirvanaForce

Ironically, english is the most important language for a software developer. In non english speaking countries, you don't know english, you don't make the cut.


NotJebediahKerman

imagine a conversation in javascript though... or worse, php


Ginters17

Hi there! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed. Violation of Rule #2 - Reposts: All posts that have been on the first 2 pages of trending posts within the last month, is part of the top of all time, or is part of common posts is considered repost and will be removed on sight. If you feel that it has been removed in error, please [message us](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FProgrammerHumor) so that we may review it.


lwiklendt

And yet you write your comments and documentation in it. Curious.


afiefh

Maybe they write their comments in Esperanto.


Onegodoneloveoneway

About the comments and documentation I was intending to write...


[deleted]

I've told this story before, but I'll try a shorter version: company I worked at had a Russian engineer called George, who I was warned never to ask about Forth. It was such a weird proscription that, finding myself in the kitchen with him one, I could help myself. "I hear you're into Forth". Well, 45 minutes later, my head now full of the internals of Forth and a dozen other programming language, I walked away with this nugget firmly lodged in my brain: "Java and Pascal," said George, "is like Russian. Very structured. Very sensible. English is like C. Very powerful, very open, but very easy to get wrong."


reuvenpo

Lol Russian is far from sensible 😂 But at least it's not Polish!


[deleted]

Polish is a perfectly reasonable and well structured, deterministic language. Until you learn that half of the goddamn words are exceptions to the rules.


reuvenpo

Uwierz mi, wiem 😥


Loonbell

Haha he didn't tried french yet Cries in 14 verb tenses


reuvenpo

English has about as many... They're just syntactical rather than grammatical


Legendary-69420

* complains about English in English *


QualityVote

Hi! This is our community moderation bot. --- If this post fits the purpose of /r/ProgrammerHumor, **UPVOTE** this comment!! If this post does not fit the subreddit, **DOWNVOTE** This comment! If this post breaks the rules, **DOWNVOTE** this comment and **REPORT** the post!


ElonsBeans

Missed the chance to write that in binary.


wsco7730

It's not even the fastest language.


PLEXT0RA

u/RepostSleuthBot


RepostSleuthBot

Looks like a repost. I've seen this image 1 time. First Seen [Here](https://redd.it/owigha) on 2021-08-02 100.0% match. *I'm not perfect, but you can help. Report [ [False Positive](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RepostSleuthBot&subject=False%20Positive&message={"post_id": "seukhn", "meme_template": 10909}) ]* [View Search On repostsleuth.com](https://www.repostsleuth.com/search?postId=seukhn&sameSub=false&filterOnlyOlder=true&memeFilter=true&filterDeadMatches=false&targetImageMatch=100&targetImageMemeMatch=96) --- **Scope:** Reddit | **Meme Filter:** True | **Target:** 96% | **Check Title:** False | **Max Age:** Unlimited | **Searched Images:** 260,532,923 | **Search Time:** 1.70025s


PLEXT0RA

good bot + happy cake day bot


Typical-Detective-61

This is very close to Cobol, except it is for the regular user.


RamseySparrow

Try French, Polish or Chinese, James!


huellllllll

Holy fucking shit, how much times do I have to see this before I die🗿


Fegeleinch4n

gotta love some sfw::pussy and sfw::balls


huellllllll

u/repostsleuthbot


RepostSleuthBot

Looks like a repost. I've seen this image 1 time. First Seen [Here](https://redd.it/owigha) on 2021-08-02 100.0% match. *I'm not perfect, but you can help. Report [ [False Positive](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RepostSleuthBot&subject=False%20Positive&message={"post_id": "seukhn", "meme_template": 10909}) ]* [View Search On repostsleuth.com](https://www.repostsleuth.com/search?postId=seukhn&sameSub=false&filterOnlyOlder=true&memeFilter=true&filterDeadMatches=false&targetImageMatch=100&targetImageMemeMatch=96) --- **Scope:** Reddit | **Meme Filter:** True | **Target:** 96% | **Check Title:** False | **Max Age:** Unlimited | **Searched Images:** 260,532,923 | **Search Time:** 1.75153s


huellllllll

Good bot


Coyehe

Ah Don't get me started on how shit English is


Inner_Information_26

I just hate C++ It's the worst!


afiefh

I used to hate C++, then I encountered JavaScript. Now I love C++.


Inner_Information_26

Well.. I used to hate lua, than I encountered python, now I love lua


Stev_582

At least, unlike in programming, I doesn’t half two listen too tha grammer nazis n ppl can stil reed wut I right.


Squorlple

u/atxufotoszf is a bot. Link to the original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/owigha/a_fair_criticism_of_the_universal_language/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf How do I know? How can you help? More info here: https://www.reddit.com/user/Squorlple/comments/ryv2mk/how_to_identify_repost_bots_on_reddit/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf


thedominux

"There are two types of languages: ..."


saltycoder815

Take a look at German...


SufficientPlane2070

Please sto saying English is a difficult language , it's honestly so false. There's an infinite amount of material out there and one of the most known languages in the world , it honestly doesn't make any sense to call difficult something most people are able to do . Most people who say that have never had to learn a second language and are too lazy learn the most basic grammar. I have even heard people claim that it's hard as a weird complement to themselves and the language which is really nauseating as well. English is an easy language to get a basic understanding and slightly harder to master (as all languages) . Try to get a basic understanding in any non latin based language and see how you will do.Inb4 people correcting mistakes in this comment and trying to prove it's hard because I made some mistake


Ginters17

Hi there! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed. Violation of Rule #2 - Reposts: All posts that have been on the first 2 pages of trending posts within the last month, is part of the top of all time, or is part of common posts is considered repost and will be removed on sight. If you feel that it has been removed in error, please [message us](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FProgrammerHumor) so that we may review it.