Decimal Point vs. Decimal Comma

On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 6:49:21 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
> On 10.4.2016 г. 01:04, Ed Prochak wrote:
> > On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 8:19:19 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
> >> On 09.4.2016 г. 02:11, Bernd Paysan wrote:
> >>> Am Wed, 06 Apr 2016 01:18:42 +0300 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:
> >>>
> >>>> So programming is done using English
> >>>> (or Galactic Standard once we are
> >>>> there), period. If someone can't
> >>>> learn English well enough to do
> >>>> programming, read/write datasheets
> >>>> etc. he is in the wrong line of work
> >>>> anyway.
> >>>
> >>> This is a pompous "my world the only
> >>> one I can imagine" point of view,
> >>> and there are of course other pompous
> >>> people in other parts of the world
> >>> which have very similar views (replace
> >>> English with their preferred
> >>> lingua franca).  A number of cheap
[]
> >>> So they are pompous, and say, "we
> >>> program in Chinese, that's a big enough
> >>> subset of the world".
> >>>
> >>
> >> Well this is a valid way of seeing things
> >> of course but in my view
> >> learning English is the way forward for humanity,
> >> until it becomes
> >> (evolves into) Galactic Standard or whatever
> >> we call it then (I suppose
> >> the name Asimov gave it will make its way
> >> to real world use).
> >>
> >> The vast majority of the knowledge humans have
> >> is in English; the
> >> simplest way to make this universally available
> >> is not by translating
> >> it to everyone's language but by people
> >> learning English. It has
> >> become what it is for a good reason.
> >
> > Sorry, I am a native English speaker but I feel
> > the need to challenge this "fact". In Physics,
> > the vast majority of knowledge was in German,
> > at least until relatively recently.
> 
> I am not so sure you have a fact here but even if you did
> it is "was" vs. "is".

And you have a fact?? Can you provide a reference
to your claim?

the fact I was referring to was that the dominant
 language can and does change. When I got my BS degree,
 the most Physics papers, especially the important ones
 were still in German. English was growing fast and became
dominant as it is now. So I witnessed the change.
 
> 
> > The fact that
> > the primary language of science can change in a
> > single generation should give pause to the claim
> > that English should be the primary language.
> > And therefore must be the only language.
> 
> English *is* the primary language, like it or not. Then it is not
> just the scientific world which uses it universally; e.g. in literature
> it is also unmatched in terms of quality*quantity. And in electronics
> and computer design/programming it just is the only language.
> 
> >
> > Pretty short sighted view, I say.
> 
> I don't think either of us will live to see this proven.

As I said, the dominant language CAN and does change.
it can do so rather quickly.

> >> In the short run people who do not speak it
> >> may have the need to
> >> program something using some hieroglyph
> >> based language or whatever but
> >> asking the rest of the world to adapt to
> >> that and provide them with
> >> tools rather than with some English
> >> schoolbook is impractical and
> >> counterproductive.
> >

here's a question for you: Do you advocate a
single programming language for all applications?
For all Operating systems?
For all processors?

just because a language is dominant
 does NOT prove it is better.

> >
> > A common language would be great. Do you happen
> > to know JCL? (Definitely NOT English!)
> > In the science and technology fields we are
> > part way there when we use mathematics.
> > But until we have one common language,
> > well I actually am sad that I am
> > not multilingual.
> 
> I am not that multilingual either - I speak Bulgarian (native),
> English, German and Russian only, the Latin part is a pretty big
> hole in my education.

I compliment you. You are still leagues ahead of me.

> But I can't say I have much if any use of either of the non-English
> languages I know in my programming.
> 
> >
> >>
> >> Mind you, I have seen stuff you
> >> probably have not. Back in the 80-s
> >> in the Soviet block I got a databook
> >> of a Russian clone of the 8080.
> >> Everything was in Cyrillic, mnemonics,
> >> everything - translated so no
> >> trace of the English original had remained.
> >> I bought the book at a bookshop just
> >> for the huge laugh it inspired,
> >> not just in me. A huge effort put
> >> in by people who have been competent
> >> and could have done something really
> >> useful instead.
> >>
> >> Dimiter
> >>
> >
> > I would differ. It made sense to them to
> > clone that chip. So is what AMD did also
> > wasted so that they
> >   "could have done something really
> >   useful instead"?
> 
> Well it was laughable all the way. I was NOT
> referring to the fact they cloned something (not the brightest
> of ideas but is done all the time by many people).
> I was referring to the part that they did completely translate/reinvent
> the signal names, opcode mnemonics etc. using horrible Cyrillic
> abbreviations and stuff, completely useless apart from giving me a good
> laugh. Whether you like the fact or not it was a perfect
> example of my point that it is much easier to learn a language than
> to translate a document written in it above a certain size of
> that document - and this threshold size is not that great at all.
> 

And my point is: it was easier FOR THEM. I'm glad you enjoyed
the result, but we may have to leave it at the agree to disagree level.

Ed

On 12.4.2016 г. 21:48, Ed Prochak wrote:
> On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 6:49:21 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
>> On 10.4.2016 г. 01:04, Ed Prochak wrote:
>>> On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 8:19:19 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
>>>> On 09.4.2016 г. 02:11, Bernd Paysan wrote:
>>>>> Am Wed, 06 Apr 2016 01:18:42 +0300 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:
>>>>>
>>>>>> So programming is done using English
>>>>>> (or Galactic Standard once we are
>>>>>> there), period. If someone can't
>>>>>> learn English well enough to do
>>>>>> programming, read/write datasheets
>>>>>> etc. he is in the wrong line of work
>>>>>> anyway.
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a pompous "my world the only
>>>>> one I can imagine" point of view,
>>>>> and there are of course other pompous
>>>>> people in other parts of the world
>>>>> which have very similar views (replace
>>>>> English with their preferred
>>>>> lingua franca).  A number of cheap
> []
>>>>> So they are pompous, and say, "we
>>>>> program in Chinese, that's a big enough
>>>>> subset of the world".
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Well this is a valid way of seeing things
>>>> of course but in my view
>>>> learning English is the way forward for humanity,
>>>> until it becomes
>>>> (evolves into) Galactic Standard or whatever
>>>> we call it then (I suppose
>>>> the name Asimov gave it will make its way
>>>> to real world use).
>>>>
>>>> The vast majority of the knowledge humans have
>>>> is in English; the
>>>> simplest way to make this universally available
>>>> is not by translating
>>>> it to everyone's language but by people
>>>> learning English. It has
>>>> become what it is for a good reason.
>>>
>>> Sorry, I am a native English speaker but I feel
>>> the need to challenge this "fact". In Physics,
>>> the vast majority of knowledge was in German,
>>> at least until relatively recently.
>>
>> I am not so sure you have a fact here but even if you did
>> it is "was" vs. "is".
>
> And you have a fact?? Can you provide a reference
> to your claim?
>
> the fact I was referring to was that the dominant
>   language can and does change. When I got my BS degree,
>   the most Physics papers, especially the important ones
>   were still in German. English was growing fast and became
> dominant as it is now. So I witnessed the change.

I am not sure I have a fact against what you think is a fact.
Did Newton produce his works in German? Did Rutherford? I have
never read their papers so I don't know the answer to that.

What you refer to as a dominant language in the has in fact
had a very limited coverage. Todays communications have changed
the environment completely. We don't know what the future holds of
course, we can only extrapolate based on what we know - and
the result of that is clear.


>>>> In the short run people who do not speak it
>>>> may have the need to
>>>> program something using some hieroglyph
>>>> based language or whatever but
>>>> asking the rest of the world to adapt to
>>>> that and provide them with
>>>> tools rather than with some English
>>>> schoolbook is impractical and
>>>> counterproductive.
>>>
>
> here's a question for you: Do you advocate a
> single programming language for all applications?
> For all Operating systems?
> For all processors?
>
> just because a language is dominant
>   does NOT prove it is better.

This is of course not only true but also a very good point you have
against mine. Diversity is always good I suppose.

However programming languages have had no time to evolve into
something stable (just the fact that C is the dominant language is
proof enough that it is still baby days for these languages).

OTOH English has had what - a millennium? - to evolve and
prove it does a good job.
Yet the diversity argument still holds, I don't have much to
argue against it. Giving it up may indeed be shortsighted, then may
be not, I just don't know.


>>> I would differ. It made sense to them to
>>> clone that chip. So is what AMD did also
>>> wasted so that they
>>>    "could have done something really
>>>    useful instead"?
>>
>> Well it was laughable all the way. I was NOT
>> referring to the fact they cloned something (not the brightest
>> of ideas but is done all the time by many people).
>> I was referring to the part that they did completely translate/reinvent
>> the signal names, opcode mnemonics etc. using horrible Cyrillic
>> abbreviations and stuff, completely useless apart from giving me a good
>> laugh. Whether you like the fact or not it was a perfect
>> example of my point that it is much easier to learn a language than
>> to translate a document written in it above a certain size of
>> that document - and this threshold size is not that great at all.
>>
>
> And my point is: it was easier FOR THEM. I'm glad you enjoyed
> the result, but we may have to leave it at the agree to disagree level.
>
> Ed
>

Oh if this is your point you are plain wrong on that, it was neither
easier for them, it got nowhere at all. Programmers in Bulgaria all
used English to some extent, in fact it does depend how good one is
as a programmer on ones English. Not just because of the language,
the ability to learn languages is crucial when it comes to programming.

Dimiter

In article <nejjhi$n4q$1@dont-email.me>, dp@tgi-sci.com says...
> 
> On 12.4.2016 ?. 21:48, Ed Prochak wrote:
> > On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 6:49:21 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
> >> On 10.4.2016 ?. 01:04, Ed Prochak wrote:
> >>> On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 8:19:19 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
> >>>> On 09.4.2016 ?. 02:11, Bernd Paysan wrote:
> >>>>> Am Wed, 06 Apr 2016 01:18:42 +0300 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:
.......
> >>> Sorry, I am a native English speaker but I feel
> >>> the need to challenge this "fact". In Physics,
> >>> the vast majority of knowledge was in German,
> >>> at least until relatively recently.
> >>
> >> I am not so sure you have a fact here but even if you did
> >> it is "was" vs. "is".
> >
> > And you have a fact?? Can you provide a reference
> > to your claim?
> >
> > the fact I was referring to was that the dominant
> >   language can and does change. When I got my BS degree,
> >   the most Physics papers, especially the important ones
> >   were still in German. English was growing fast and became
> > dominant as it is now. So I witnessed the change.
> 
> I am not sure I have a fact against what you think is a fact.
> Did Newton produce his works in German? Did Rutherford? I have
> never read their papers so I don't know the answer to that.

Newton's work and many around that time was in Latin
'Principia Mathematica' if I remember correctly.

Up until the mid 19th century most science papers were in Greek then 
Latin for the bulk of time as the common language.

> What you refer to as a dominant language in the has in fact
> had a very limited coverage. Todays communications have changed
> the environment completely. We don't know what the future holds of
> course, we can only extrapolate based on what we know - and
> the result of that is clear.

Some languages are mandated International Air Traffic control
is mainly English and has been for quite some time.

Some places like UN and EU have several mandated languages

-- 
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/pi/>  Raspberry Pi Add-ons
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/fonts/> Timing Diagram Font
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate

On 13/04/16 00:03, Paul wrote:
> In article <nejjhi$n4q$1@dont-email.me>, dp@tgi-sci.com says...
>>
>> On 12.4.2016 ?. 21:48, Ed Prochak wrote:
>>> On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 6:49:21 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
>>>> On 10.4.2016 ?. 01:04, Ed Prochak wrote:
>>>>> On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 8:19:19 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
>>>>>> On 09.4.2016 ?. 02:11, Bernd Paysan wrote:
>>>>>>> Am Wed, 06 Apr 2016 01:18:42 +0300 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:
> .......
>>>>> Sorry, I am a native English speaker but I feel
>>>>> the need to challenge this "fact". In Physics,
>>>>> the vast majority of knowledge was in German,
>>>>> at least until relatively recently.
>>>>
>>>> I am not so sure you have a fact here but even if you did
>>>> it is "was" vs. "is".
>>>
>>> And you have a fact?? Can you provide a reference
>>> to your claim?
>>>
>>> the fact I was referring to was that the dominant
>>>   language can and does change. When I got my BS degree,
>>>   the most Physics papers, especially the important ones
>>>   were still in German. English was growing fast and became
>>> dominant as it is now. So I witnessed the change.
>>
>> I am not sure I have a fact against what you think is a fact.
>> Did Newton produce his works in German? Did Rutherford? I have
>> never read their papers so I don't know the answer to that.
> 
> Newton's work and many around that time was in Latin
> 'Principia Mathematica' if I remember correctly.
> 
> Up until the mid 19th century most science papers were in Greek then 
> Latin for the bulk of time as the common language.

I don't know that Greek was ever used significantly for science papers
(except by the Greeks, of course).  Latin was dominant in Europe until
mid 19th century, and in the middle ages Arabic was common (because the
Islamic scholars were studying the world while the Catholic Church was
burning people for trying to figure out how things work).  As scientists
were very spread out, and book publishing was difficult and expensive,
it was important to have a common language and avoid the need for
translation - thus Latin was vital.

Since that time, scientists worked more in their native languages.
Partly this was because it was easier to make and publish translations,
so that a common language was not as essential.  The other major reason
is that science was no longer being done by rich nobles with a church
education in Latin, but more by "ordinary" people - in particular,
industrialists and engineers looking to solve practical problems were
more involved.  Scientific papers were published in native languages,
along with a few "international" languages - English, German, French and
Russian were, I believe, the most common choices.  It is only since
global travel and communication, and global publication of books and
journals, that it has become useful to concentrate on a single language
again - people don't want to wait for translations.  And perhaps if
machine translation ever gets good enough, we'll go back to native
languages.

> 
>> What you refer to as a dominant language in the has in fact
>> had a very limited coverage. Todays communications have changed
>> the environment completely. We don't know what the future holds of
>> course, we can only extrapolate based on what we know - and
>> the result of that is clear.
> 
> Some languages are mandated International Air Traffic control
> is mainly English and has been for quite some time.
> 
> Some places like UN and EU have several mandated languages
> 

In article <nekrr0$o0k$1@dont-email.me>, david.brown@hesbynett.no 
says...
> 
> On 13/04/16 00:03, Paul wrote:
> > In article <nejjhi$n4q$1@dont-email.me>, dp@tgi-sci.com says...
> >>
> >> On 12.4.2016 ?. 21:48, Ed Prochak wrote:
> >>> On Saturday, April 9, 2016 at 6:49:21 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
> >>>> On 10.4.2016 ?. 01:04, Ed Prochak wrote:
> >>>>> On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 8:19:19 PM UTC-4, dp wrote:
> >>>>>> On 09.4.2016 ?. 02:11, Bernd Paysan wrote:
> >>>>>>> Am Wed, 06 Apr 2016 01:18:42 +0300 schrieb Dimiter_Popoff:
> > .......
> >>>>> Sorry, I am a native English speaker but I feel
> >>>>> the need to challenge this "fact". In Physics,
> >>>>> the vast majority of knowledge was in German,
> >>>>> at least until relatively recently.
> >>>>
> >>>> I am not so sure you have a fact here but even if you did
> >>>> it is "was" vs. "is".
> >>>
> >>> And you have a fact?? Can you provide a reference
> >>> to your claim?
> >>>
> >>> the fact I was referring to was that the dominant
> >>>   language can and does change. When I got my BS degree,
> >>>   the most Physics papers, especially the important ones
> >>>   were still in German. English was growing fast and became
> >>> dominant as it is now. So I witnessed the change.
> >>
> >> I am not sure I have a fact against what you think is a fact.
> >> Did Newton produce his works in German? Did Rutherford? I have
> >> never read their papers so I don't know the answer to that.
> > 
> > Newton's work and many around that time was in Latin
> > 'Principia Mathematica' if I remember correctly.
> > 
> > Up until the mid 19th century most science papers were in Greek then 
> > Latin for the bulk of time as the common language.
> 
> I don't know that Greek was ever used significantly for science papers
> (except by the Greeks, of course).  Latin was dominant in Europe until
> mid 19th century, and in the middle ages Arabic was common (because the
> Islamic scholars were studying the world while the Catholic Church was
> burning people for trying to figure out how things work).  As scientists
> were very spread out, and book publishing was difficult and expensive,
> it was important to have a common language and avoid the need for
> translation - thus Latin was vital.

There was a famous one deliberately written in Greek, early 20th Century
about the various sexual habits of penguins in Antartica...

Some of the earliest sceince 'papers' were by the Greeks (Pythagorus..)
Yes various other ones were in regional languages like Arabic and I 
believe Urdu (Indian sub-continent scholars) etc.

Politicics, culture and regions dictated what written in




-- 
Paul Carpenter          | paul@pcserviceselectronics.co.uk
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/>    PC Services
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/pi/>  Raspberry Pi Add-ons
<http://www.pcserviceselectronics.co.uk/fonts/> Timing Diagram Font
<http://www.badweb.org.uk/> For those web sites you hate