PascalABC goes international.

I just found PascalABC.Net on the internet. It’s so simple yet so powerful. I was quite impressed with it that I think it’s better than Delphi or FreePascal, especially for education purpose. The IDE is simple and fast while the language dialect is much more modern. This variant of Pascal should be known internationally.

However, there’s one big problem that I think would make PascalABC hard to be accepted internationally. It is too Russian centric. Even the comments and identifier names in the given samples are in Russian. So, if PascalABC want to reach Pascal programmers all over the world, the first necessary step would be to translate all the text to english, especially and importantly the documentation and program samples.

I’m from Indonesia, we’re here still stuck with Turbo Pascal 7 (with DOSBox) to teach pascal programming in schools. I’d like to see PascalABC to get known and used in Indonesia, also in the world. But I’m pessimistic it would happen if PascalABC’s documentation is still in Russian. I’d like to help on the translating, but I know nothing at all about Russian.

What do you think? Please reply in english.

Thank you.

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Thank you for using English instead of Indonesian. You are writing to a Russian-language forum, so you should understand that most of our community must to use automatic translation tools to understand your message. What prevents You from using the same translator to communicate in the forum language? I.e. you are the only one who has difficulties using Russian, but you suggest that the entire community switch to English-language communication?

My suggestion only applies if only you want PascalABC goes international. If you want to keep it just for Russian community only, then please keep using Russian. I don’t intend to force anybody to use any languages they don’t want to use. But this is not about you or me, this is about PascalABC so it could be known internationally. Hence I also use english.

For example, using google to find any help about PascalABC in english is so difficult. FYI, FreePascal authors are mostly not english native speakers. But they want FPC to get known internationally, so they use english as the main language in their text, documentation, and community since the first time. That’s also a reason why FPC is so popular as Delphi alternative.

An online translator such as google translate would help anyone to write in english. This is also what happen in FPC community. The translator should help us all making PascalABC goes international, not to keep it for Russian only. Unless, the authors want PascalABC to be used by Russian exclusively, then simply ignore my suggestion.

My message was about using the language of communication on the forum exclusively. If you noticed, it never mentioned PascalАВС.NЕТ. You ignored this offer OK, it’s Your own choice.

Yes, I’m talking about PascalABC as a whole entity, including the pascal language, the IDE, the documentation, and the general community, not only this forum exclusively. It’s on the title of my post.

I wouldn’t take it as an option, as most people who need to understand @Bee_Jay - already know English, so in most of cases understanding output of google translator would be harder.


But, on other hand, while it certainly wouldn’t hurt to support other languages - there is no infrastructure for translating things like comments in samples. Adding it would take a lot of time and i doubt devs would give much priority to it. Can you make such infrastructure and submit pull-request?

Though, note, i’m not talking on behalf of devs, i’m just assuming they wouldn’t be against it. You should probably wait for @Admin’s thoughts on this first.

No need to support many other languages, yet. Just focus in English first because it’s an international language on programming world. Even non English speakers create new programming language in English. After we’re done, we could continue the work on other languages, such as Chinese.

I’d like to help on translating, especially on comments and identifier names in the code samples. But, as I said, I know nothing at all about russian (with correct and contextual meaning in programming terms) so I can’t do anything.

Russian language would need to stay as easiest to get working, because current main use is Russians schools.

And if 2 languages (ru and en) are supported for whole project - it would probably be easier (and certainly more productive) to create generic system for all languages, rather then to hardcode support for just 2.

Of course, I didn’t mean we should remove Russian completely. It’s still the main and primary language in PascalABC. But I proposed the dev to start supporting English language seriously in order to get international support. By supporting English, I believe PascalABC would attract more developers from out of Russia. Everybody wins. :blush:

Да чего уж там: отличная позиция: “Хочу английский!. Сам я, правда, ничего делать для этого не стану, даже не потружусь писать на русском языке в русскоязычном сообществе, чтобы меня понимали все, а не избранные”. Ну-ну.

I don’t force you–or anyone in this forum for that matter–to reply my post. If you don’t want to help me in english, then simply ignore me. You also can’t force me to speak in Russian because I don’t know anything about it. And I can’t be fluent in Russian in just 1-2 days, even a month won’t be enough.

I’m talking about the PascalABC international vision by using english. If you don’t care about it, then ignore me and keep using Russian. :blush:


Google translate result:

Я не заставляю вас - или кого-либо еще в этом форуме - отвечать на мое сообщение. Если вы не хотите помогать мне на английском, просто игнорируйте меня. Вы также не можете заставить меня говорить по-русски, потому что я ничего об этом не знаю. И я не могу свободно говорить по-русски всего за 1-2 дня, даже на месяц не хватит.

Я говорю о международном видении PascalABC, используя английский язык. Если тебя это не волнует, проигнорируй меня и продолжай говорить по-русски. :blush:

I can even suggest going to the moon, but why? This is an open source project, so we welcome everyone who wants to contribute to its development in one way or another. But we welcome deeds not just words

Your response clearly shows that you read my comment using google translation. So, we miss lots of things in our conversation due to language barrier. Please ignore me then. :blush:

Yes, you are right: PascalABC.NET now is too Russian centric. Dut this project is Open Source - you can make your contribution.

I have some old attempt of translation of PascalABC.NET documentation made by my students. This can be used as a first step in this translation.

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As my main concern is English translation, how could I make any contribution if I know nothing about Russian? If you just want google translation, you could use it now instantly. But the result is confusing, to say the least, which could be misleading the readers.

Please publish your e-mail - I’ll send you the " old attempt of translation of PascalABC.NET documentation" mentioned above

I send you a private message.

Try https://translate.yandex.ru This service may be better for the Russian language

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I would agree as well. I translated the help files to English which involved several steps: a chm converter, docx file format, Deepl translator (a commercial product), Word to export to PDF format. It appears to be a fairly good translation from what I can tell so far and the hyperlinks have been preserved from the original help files. Maybe some English speakers will find it useful.

The translated PDF. If an Admin would like to host the file, that would be great! :grinning: :+1:

Gary Chike

Я бы тоже согласился. Я перевел файлы справки на английский язык, что включало несколько этапов: конвертер chm, формат файла docx, переводчик Deepl (коммерческий продукт), Word для экспорта в формат PDF. Это довольно хороший перевод, насколько я могу судить, и гиперссылки были сохранены из оригинальных файлов справки. Возможно, некоторые англоговорящие найдут его полезным.

переведенный PDF. Если кто-то из администраторов захочет разместить файл, это было бы здорово! :grinning: :+1:

гари чайка

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Если бы вычитал этот текст кто-то из англоговорящих ИТ-шников - было бы хорошо. У меня есть переводы, выполненные студентами, но я боюсь их использовать

Кроме того, форматирование этого документа оставляет желать лучшего. Некоторые слова сливаются, шрифты подобраны неудачно. То есть, с этим текстом надо еще очень много работать

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