And if we need them, what should they look like? Should they be targeted to
programming beginners?
I’d love to write about Haskell in my own language. I can confidently say my
English is competent, but it is obviously not as good as my Spanish.
And there is a dearth of resources in Spanish, so there is a place
for it. So I ask in this forum your opinion: do we need resources in other
languages?
It is easy to question the need for it. It seems like the path of most programmers
leads to a sufficient level of English reading comprehension, making resources
in other languages redundant.
I think beginners in the programming world are more likely not to have a good
understanding of the English language. As soon as they get into it, English
becomes a necessity and they find a strong incentive for learning it.
But they still need something to start with. My programming journey started
with a Python 2.7 book written in Spanish, and I hope I am not alone in that
experience. That book could have been a Haskell book - maybe.
So, what do you think?
(By the way, I am a long time lurker of this forum - Hello everyone )
More resources are always good. If you want to write about Haskell in Spanish, you should totally do so. You don’t even need English words to program (see: APL). You can use alien words (until you learn them) to program.
But, to consider: not everybody can understand Spanish. And by having an English version you would reach not only English speakers in the anglo sphere, but also beginners around the world.
Although you can be a strictly Spanish programmer, if you don’t learn English you won’t be able to read most scientific papers and technical books. Which is fine… if you can figure out how to make sense of badly translated technical terms which don’t have a direct translation. Or if you don’t care about reading those things: you certainly don’t need them to make CRUD programs. You also won’t be able to go to conventions, talk to other people in Discord, or talk to other people in here, even. Unless you auto translate everything (which is a possibility). Basically, if you refuse to learn English you’re stunting your growth as a programmer: you are handicapping yourself out of learning materials, business partners and teachers.
More resources are always good, go for it It’ll be a better book if you write it in the language you write best in. And it can be hard enough learning a new programming language and concepts without also doing it in a foreign language. It’s also good to have a wider range of Haskell+something books, not just plain Haskell books, getting more niches covered using the unique combinations of skills of diverse writers.
I would guess beginner level is the most likely to be useful first, since the more you’ve advanced in learning programming, the more likely you are to have picked up more English.
Oh yes, when making this post I was thinking of two groups of users: the English-speaking Haskell community, and those that don’t know Haskell nor English (or perhaps don’t feel comfortable with English, since there is a spectrum out there).
It seems to me that the English-speaking community can benefit from having more Haskell users in general, regardless of the language. And beginners that don’t speak the lingua franca yet can get started in Haskell with less effort if they have the appropriate resources in their language.
I agree completely that not knowing English can stunt your growth. In fact, with Haskell’s academic leaning, not knowing the language is probably even more limiting. You cannot read Haskell papers, blog posts or books which engage in important ideas used by many Haskell users. While in Spanish you can find books that try to teach OO programming by the dozen (not that they are all great, of course. But OO is hardly a secret).
Writing about Haskell in Spanish is useful to beginners — but that is not the only benefit!
You will also help creating/developing/validating a collection of Spanish words and expressions which are needed to talk about Haskell and functional programming in general.
This is very important.
You have already noticed there are a number of Spanish books about object oriented programming, but no such thing — or very little — about functional programming.
By writing in Spanish, your work will will for sure help beginners learning in a language that they are comfortable using. And you will also allow more advanced Haskell users talk to each other in Spanish when the need arises (maybe a Haskell meetup in Montevideo).
A Haskell meetup in Montevideo would be great. I considered organizing one, but I feel my bandwidth is a bit limited at the moment. I know there have to be some Haskell users here, because Haskell is taught in a few local university courses. But that’s all I know (perhaps a professor could step out of the shadows in this thread?)
I think it’s important to see writing in Spanish not just as a contribution to the Haskell language, but also as a contribution to the Spanish language. Technical content is Spanish is relatively rare, and producing more of it helps make the language more robust in technical context. That’s a valuable outcome on its own.
I’d love to be part of an initiative focused on this. A few years ago, I started something called Ergonautas (I imagined it could be a blog or a glossary) but I didn’t follow through. I’d still be very interested in revisiting something like that.
Thanks for sharing resources, the books on this thread are the first Haskell books I see in Spanish.
@jpvillaisaza I will reach out if I do anything along the things that interest you. I’m thinking of starting a personal blog, with some content in English and some other in Spanish. But I struggle to see how a bilingual blog should be structured. Perhaps two separate blogs make more sense? But then, if I decide to translate a post, the same article will be in two different websites, which is not ideal.
I am pretty confident that with a bit of tinkering and HTML templating Hakyll can generate bilingual blogs. Something along the lines “special env for the same text in two languages” and “generate an HTML tab for each language”.
)
It’ll be a better book if you write it in the language you write best in. And it can be hard enough learning a new programming language and concepts without also doing it in a foreign language. It’s also good to have a wider range of Haskell+something books, not just plain Haskell books, getting more niches covered using the unique combinations of skills of diverse writers.