Communications of the ACM
Meet the Programming Language That Uses Arabic Script
"Arabic as a language has very interesting properties that lend itself towards code," says computer scientist Ramsey Nasser.
Credit: Animal
A computer scientist has written the first programming language based on Arabic script, chosen equally for its aesthetic and programming values. Named "heart" in Arabic, the new language is "the first programming language that is a conceptual art piece," says computer scientist Ramsey Nasser who developed the code. To create artistic code, he can change the lengths of the lines that connect the Arabic letters.
Another reason Nasser chose Arabic is that he wanted to move away from the Euro-centric programming that presents an obstacle to people from other areas. "If we are going to really push for coding literacy, which I do, if we are going to push to teach code around the world, then we have to be aware of what the cultural biases are and what it means for someone who doesn't share that background to be expected to be able to reason in those languages," Nasser says.
In addition to filling aesthetic and cultural voids in programming, he says the code also is Turing-complete and can execute any type of computation, including the Fibonacci sequence.
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