At the face of it ,its a fun language akin to brainfuck . That is main reason it is going viral now . But bhailang also highlights thee need to teach programming and computer science in native languages natively .
Each spoken language has different conceptual coverage and interrelationship .So when we teach a programming language (or any other science ) our main task is to translate these programming abstractions to their best conceptual match in the mental language of the student (every one has a thinking language).
One simple example is Indian usage of words like “relate to” or “adjust” .These are traditionally alien concepts to us .But we have kind of figured out what they mean in essence and we use them with fellow Indians. A native English speaker will find it amusing tough .But indians get it .That’s how spoken language work. They represents a unique world of psycho-conceptual model that works on known conventions .
Coming to programming . What do we mean a=1 . Does a contain 1 or does it represent or does it refer or is it equal or is it assigned . Your answer will depend on the programming language .Your life is even more tough if you know multiple programming languages .
Who then makes sure that such thing is aptly conveyed to student in his thinking language .Consider another case , who do we really mean when we say a class abstracts another ? Can you explain that to me in your native language succinctly ? There are many such concepts in software which we haven’t consciously translate + conveyed (trans-convey) in our thinking languages .But in our mind this happens anyway ,unconsciously whiteout any formal check on correctness of it .
Few more examples: is specialization of , function is applied to ,is executed ,represents edge case , manifests as, multiparadigm or imperative language , normalization ,process communicates, async processing , stacked vs queues ,modular ,layered ,optimized …..
Of course all of us vernacular folks and their teachers have “kind of figured out” what all this means .But “kind of figured out” is not really the scientific way of learning nor can it guarantee accurate outcomes .
Bhialang with its popularity , raises this very question of trans-conveying of software concepts !
Check it : https://bhailang.js.org/