"Josef 'Jupp' Schugt" <jupp / gmx.de> wrote in message
news:20030306220028.GA4556@jupp%gmx.de...
> EHLO
>
> * On 2003-03-06 20:03
> * MikkelFJ <mikkelfj-anti-spam / bigfoot.com> wrote:
> > If people would just provide good examples of their modules in
> > Ruby, possibly also with Test::Unit, the Japanese/Russian/English
> > etc. problem would essentially be solved.
>
> I don't fully agree with that. The following is a slightly modified

No offense, but you seem to get my points wrong:

> example taken from 'Programmieren mit Ruby' by Ro:hrl, Schmiedl and
> Wyss. It illustrates several features of Ruby. I am pretty sure that

Yes, here all the words are in German. My point was the most Japanese
developers know enough english to name methods in english. It is fine to
write source in German, but doing so does not address the issue of
international documenation. It is a choice.

> > Most Japenese developers know enough english to name their
> > functions but sometimes have problems with forming sentences.
>
> English and Japanese are indeed *very* different. Just to give a
> possibly known example:
....
> If you forget to take into acount this inverse order an English
> sentence may make little to no sense.

That is exactly what I said - Japanese people seem to have difficulties
forming english sentences. This is why source in Ruby comes in handy,
because it is not ambigous the same way, and you can still name methods in
english. Indeed a lot of japanese Ruby source is written in english with
japanese documentation.

> That may sound like a very strange idea but it isn't. I am German and
> may Germans "use often not the word order of the english" (they often
> don't use the word order of the english language). If one knows that
> order it is much easier to understand them.

Yes in german sentences are formed rather different from english sentences.
But in Ruby you have a choice without getting into ambiguities:

if x < y then puts "hello" end
puts "hello" if x < y

But even if the language is german or french, it still better than nothing.
It's crucial that the Latin alphabet is being used, because it is understood
worldwide, whereas Cyrillic and Kanji is very difficult decipher outside
their target audience.

def wait_for_bus my_bus, station
if time < my_bus.arrival - Time.new("0:10")
  self.random_walk(Time.new("0:05"))
end
shop.buy_ticket
if my_bus.location == station.location
  self.location = bus
else
  phone.dial("home")
  phone.message("delayed")
  phone.hangup
end if
end

Mikkel