The International Arab Journal of Information Technology (IAJIT)

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Facile Programming Hanan Elazhary

 High-level  languages  and  very  high-level  languages  have  been  developed  to  simplify  programming.  But,  programming  is  still  hard  for  many  people  especiall y  those  from  disciplines  that  are  not  computer-related.  Facile  programming implies the modification of programming  languages to be easily learnt, remembered, and used by programmers  from  different  disciplines.  This  is  achieved  by  stu dying  and  trying  to  tackle  the  practical  difficulties  that  face  such  programmers.  The  paper  addresses  the  difficulty  of  learning,  remembering,  using,  and  understanding  com pilation  error  messages  of  common  English-like  programming  languag es  by  programmers  who  are  not  fluent  in  English.  To  tackle  this  problem, we developed Arabic  versions of LISP and  S QL in an attempt  to figure out whether  developing versions, of  common  programming  languages,  that  are  like  natural  langua ges  of  programmers  would  improve  their  programming  capability.  Syntax  errors  in  the  Arabic  versions  can  be  detecte d  and  the  corresponding  error  messages  are  produced   in  Arabic.  To  encourage  the  use  of  these  Arabic  versions,  we  also   developed  translators  that  can  translate  programs between  the  corresponding  Arabic  and  English  versions  of  these  programming  languages  for  portability.  This  paper  e xplains  the  Arabic  version of SQL, but reports results from our experi ence with the Arabic versions of both LISP and SQL.    


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[21] Jeemlang, available at: http://www.jeemlang.com/documentation/webfra me.html, last visited 2007. Hanan Elazhary received her BSc degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering and her MSc degree in Computer Engineering from the faculty of Engineering, Cairo University, Egypt. She received her PhD degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Connecticut, USA. Currently, she is working as a researcher at the Electronics Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt. She is also working as a p art* time assistant professor at several reputable universities in Cairo, Egypt. Her research interest s include high performance computing (HPC), software engineering, artificial intelligence, and computer networks. Elazhary has supervised several graduatio n projects and is currently supervising one PhD stude nt in the field of high*performance computing.