Non-English Programming with Hedy
Talk (60 min)
In level 1, there is hardly any syntax at all, for example printing is done with:
print hello Copenhagen!
In every level, new syntax and concepts are added, until kids are doing a subset of Python in level 18 with conditions, loops, functions variables and lists.
Hedy is open source, runs in the browser, is free to use, and available in 47 different languages (Including English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Hindi).
In this talk Hedy's creator Felienne will take you through all changes that were necessary to make Hedy work multilingually, with a special emphasis on right to left languages which included extensive changes to the parser and transpiler.
The talk will help you understand the technical and cultural implications of inclusive programming (language) design.
Felienne Hermans
Felienne is a professor of Computer Science Education at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She also works as a high-school Computer Science teacher one day a week at Lyceum Kralingen in the Codasium program.
Felienne is the creator of the Hedy programming language, a gradual and multi-lingual programming languages designed for teaching.
She is the author of “The Programmer’s Brain“, a book that helps programmers understand how their brain works and how to use it more effectively. In 2021, Felienne was awarded the Dutch Prize for ICT research. She also has a biweekly tech column on BNR, a Dutch radio station. Felienne blogs at felienne.com