Shouldn't Every Developer Understand English? 1077
Pickens writes "Jeff Atwood has an interesting post that begins by noting that with the Internet, whatever country you live in or language you speak, a growing percentage of the accumulated knowledge of the world can and should be available in your native language; but that the rules are different for programmers. 'So much so that I'm going to ask the unthinkable: shouldn't every software developer understand English?' Atwood argues that 'It's nothing more than great hackers collectively realizing that sticking to English for technical discussion makes it easier to get stuff done. It's a meritocracy of code, not language, and nobody (or at least nobody who is sane, anyway) localizes programming languages.' Eric Raymond in his essay 'How to be a Hacker' says that functional English is required for true hackers and notes that 'Linus Torvalds, a Finn, comments his code in English (it apparently never occurred to him to do otherwise). His fluency in English has been an important factor in his ability to recruit a worldwide community of developers for Linux. It's an example worth following.' Although it may sound like The Ugly American and be taken as a sort of cultural imperialism, 'advocating the adoption of English as the de-facto standard language of software development is simple pragmatism, the most virtuous of all hacker traits,' writes Atwood. 'If that makes me an ugly American programmer, so be it.'"
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree. Not much different than learning French a century or three ago if you wanted to go into nternational diplomacy and handle high government legal affairs.
Not just for programming (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
That's pretty stupid (unless you're joking). It's not like you have to know English just to understand the few words in programming languages. Of course there are other reasons for knowing English. There are a lot more programming books in English and if you are googleing you'd want to search in English and be able to read the information.
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:4, Insightful)
Cool, that sounds interesting. Upon what will you base your argument? Or have you confused "argue" and "assert?" An unfounded, unbased assertion is not an argument. HTH!
One language (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's a more general statement: "All programmers should understand and be reasonably fluent in one common language.". It just makes collaboration easier if there's one language everybody can use when they need to talk to each other. It just so happens that English happens to be the one language with the largest "market share", because of the way computer programming started off. Personally I don't think English should get primacy just because it's English, but at the moment it probably involves the fewest people having to learn a language they don't already know. Plus, as noted, it's such a mongrel. As the joke goes, it doesn't so much borrow from other langauges as chase them down a dark alley, whack them up the back of the head and riffle their pockets for vocabulary. English is probably the best language out there when it comes to having short, direct ways of saying technical things. To me, those things give English the best claim to the position.
Re:Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:2, Insightful)
Practically every Finn under the age of 30 is bilingual, and the vast majority of those under 50 are bilingual.
We have subtitles instead of dubs which VASTLY helps with learning the language. That, and games. Games are in english, and we play a lot of games.
However, regarding the original post, I think that knowing ANY language by heart is the most important tool for a coder. Let it be your mother tongue, or any other, as long as you know one language throughoutly, you'll be that much better as a coder. The logic for this is hard to explain, but once you understand how languages, in general, work, it's that much easier to learn a new one (were it foreign language, or a programming language).
However, having a common language (with English being the most reasonable one since it's taught and talked throughout the globe) is vitally important for Coders, in general, to learn more efficiently and to communicate with eachother. Comments are naturally a way of communication.
Musical vocabulary is Italian.... (Score:5, Insightful)
I read an anecdote somewhere that went something like this:
Re:Yes (Score:1, Insightful)
Agreed. I had the joy of debugging perl code written in Russian a few years back. Not fun.
Re:Au contraire (Score:1, Insightful)
Constructed languages are so boring though; they strip out all the fun parts of language learning.
no need to make the point, its automatic (Score:5, Insightful)
jeff atwood is proposing a nonsolution to a nonproblem
for historical reasons, english has become the de facto language of business worldwide, and programming as a global profession simply follows this proclivity, no questions asked, no need to underline the point
a non-english speaking programmer knows he or she is limiting their options career-wise simply by ignoring the largest resource available to them: other programmers, who are undoubtedly speaking english, even if they themselves are not native english speakers. and so there is no need to insist programmers speak english, as it is self inclusivity (of those who choose to speak english freely) that is the prime motivator here, not esternally applied exclusivity (insisting someone speak english... that already knows its important)
if a programmer self-excludes by choosing not to speak english, who cares? its there choice. let them program in english language isolation. how does that effect you? its not like you are going to an english language symposium and run into someone who insists you speak hindi to them, or comment on an english language programming tip site, and run into a comment in mandarin, or sit next to a programmer in the office, who only speaks spanish. the hindi speaker would have never gone to the symposium in the first place: its in english, announced up front. the mandarin speaker would not comment in the english language programming site: all the other content is a sea of english, what's the point? and the spanish-only speaker would never have been hired in the most probably english-speaking place of business in the first place, you would never run into such a person
in other words, jeff is pointing out a nonexistent problem, that even if it existed, has a solution proposed which is pointless
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I live in Mexico... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Way to extreme, but then there is ATC (Score:1, Insightful)
If the language is the same then you get better documentation rather than poorly translated documentation.
Comments are readable as a standard.
Knowing the language your keywords come from let you understand the keywords better.
Re:Yes, pilots (Score:4, Insightful)
Selection Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA has many comments on its own page that agree with you, saying that this is a non issue. Of course, all of those people can already speak English, or else they wouldn't have been able to read the article. The millions of programmers who only speak Russian, Chinese, Japanese, German, etc. are unlikely to chime in here to argue against you. You probably didn't have a conversation just last week with a developer who only speaks Korean.
I'm only sort of disagreeing. If I were a non-English speaking programmer with the time and resources to learn English, I probably would. I'm just saying that its hard to have a useful discussion about this, since the people most likely to have opposing views can't understand what we're saying.
Re:closed source language (Score:2, Insightful)
And you couldn't be more wrong.
Every programmer should be able to read code (Score:3, Insightful)
Idiot programmers make the same idiot mistakes regardless of what language they speak. I'd much rather work with a brilliant, non-English speaker who can read and understand code (i.e. my code or anyone else's) vs. an English speaker that can't read code and is perpetually inserting screw-ups that I have to go in and mop up later.
Re:Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
*Beep beep beep*
10 REACH $ALARM_CLOCK
20 BEAT $ALARM_CLOCK
30 GOTO 20
Re:Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
Or learning German a century ago if you wanted to be a scientist / mathematician. English is the lingua franca, so if you want a job in the technical/scientific field, you almost need to understand it. Maybe in another century, everyone will understand written Chinese.
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:1, Insightful)
This kind of depends. It's easy to find monolingual people here, but I'd still wager that a majority of Finnish kids can get their message across in English. That's far from being multilingual though, so that much is true.
The mandatory Swedish is an another thing altogether. Most of us never need to use Swedish anywhere (or think that they never do, which for people generally amounts for the same thing), and the fact that it's mandatory doesn't inspire much passion in teenagers, which I guess is just normal...
English is the de facto language in IT globally, so it's natural that for example programmers should be fluent with it. And to follow this up, I usually comment my code in Finnish, but that's because I'm not a real coder. What I code is generally only for my own use for a specific purpose so there's no need to comment in English. Naturally if I'm required to do something someone else might use sometime, I'll comment it in English.
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a native English speaker living in England, it's pretty easy to find young people who can't even hold a simple conversation in English.
Let's face it, even if an education system offers it doesn't mean everyone will take it up/do well at it. I would imagine that those who go on to be capable programmers will have done better in their education though.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not (Score:3, Insightful)
At the turn of the last century, if you wanted a science or engineering degree, you had to learn German, as all the best journals were printed in that language.
The allied victory in WWII basically sealed the fate of German as the academic and technical lingua franca. The British/American development of the first stored-program computers, based in part upon the previous work of Charles Babbage and later Alan Turing (who worked at Bletchley Park on the Colossus among other things), further sealed the deal in the decades following WWII (especially with the Soviets walling themselves off behind the Iron Curtain).
Re:English thinking? (Score:2, Insightful)
All?
pascal, python, ruby,
Using English helps, as words can be used without connotation. Spam is spam, the same for bug, loop, goto, byte, computer,
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a mexican programmer, living in México, and I agree that every developer should at least read English, not because the actual programming language, but because of the vast information written in English and also the fact that most translated books are already outdated by the time they got published.
(Cue to jokes saying that you don't need to know english syntax to post in slashdot in 3..2..1..)
Why Scandinavians speak English: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have gathered considerable information about why Scandinavians speak English. This is the story, using the Finns as an example:
Since so few people want to learn Finnish, they had to choose some other language, or not be able to communicate with the rest of the world. What other language should they choose? Not German, since the Germans made so much trouble for everyone in World War Two. Not French, since the French treat people who can't speak French perfectly as social inferiors. Not Italian, since you have to be passionate to be Italian, and besides, Italians are so self-defeating.
In the late 1800s, the chosen language was French. But, a little at a time, the arrogance of the French caused people to choose a lesser evil: English. It's not that the English were wonderful, it's just that the English were the least annoying. Also, the English had been engaged in violent empire-building, so anyone who knew English could go anywhere in the empire to do business.
It helped that people in the United States spoke English. There was a huge amount of material available in English, because it was spoken in two populous countries. So choosing English gave more benefits than other languages.
There are other reasons, but I have to go back to work.
Re:Yes, pilots (Score:1, Insightful)
English is the 'official' language of ICAO, and all pilotes and air traffic controllers on international routes for any member nation are required to speak the language (http://www.relta.org/icao.html).
A friend who flies for UPS was telling me that you should never greet an air traffic controller in their native tounge as the controller will assume that you are fluent and switch from English.
downright wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
a MINORITY of french, particularly a few academic and minister with nothing else to do do that. But most french could not care less. I never used couriel or whatever it is called, and everybody I know use email as word.
Re:Yes (Score:2, Insightful)
You need to understand English to develop in programming languages where the syntax and reserved words are in English.
Not really. If the "end" keyword in languages I use were replaced with "fin", it wouldn't bother me much. It's the unbounded set of APIs and accompanying documentation that really causes trouble.
Also note that universal programming languages need not be English-based. There's another lingua franca for programmers: mathematical notation. The Fortress [wikipedia.org] people would argue, in fact, that this is a far better way to express programs, having far more history behind it, and being more natural, concise, and universally-understood.
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:4, Insightful)
Whenever people say "The French are rude", when the inevitably really mean is "People in Paris are rude". Once you get out to the countryside, folks seem quite nice.
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:4, Insightful)
Try German. Just about anything that requires a sentence in English can be said with one 14-syllable German word. :D
Sounds a bit like Haskell =)
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:4, Insightful)
This is they key (french guy speaking).
Trying to show people that you cared enough to learn "Bonjour", a few words (whatever the quality) and then switching when you've shown enough interest to the local place goes a long tway to show people you're not snubbing THEM.
And I try to learn a few words as well when I go to a foreign country before switching to english.
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, Americans are more likely to tell you that you need to speak English. I can't think of a single store in America where someone's going to try to find you a translator; most people simply don't have time for that level of customer service.
I even had an experience with a Japanese friend at a bank trying to cash a traveler's check, and the cashier wouldn't accept it because she had signed and countersigned in Japanese. The lady insisted that she needed to write her name "in English".
The thing is, the signature merely needs to match; there's no requirement that you need to be able to read it, and plenty of people whose valid signatures are completely illegible, even though they're "in English".
As for a standardized language for programmers: in the broadest international sense, I think that English should be the standard language simply because it already *is* for most dealings. It's nothing specific to programming. It doesn't mean that somebody can't have a very productive career in a multitude of non-English speaking countries.
Of course, if you're going to be working on an international level, you would benefit from learning a second language, period. That goes for native English speakers, too. It's not just helpful to be able to cross a communications barrier, it can also help you to appear more intelligent and friendly, which in turn make you more valuable.
Re:Sesame Street & the Importance of Bilingual (Score:3, Insightful)
Strange you should say that, as I am a New Zealander and spent about four months in France in the 90's. I knew no French at the time (bonjour, maybe???) and had absolutely no problems. The first thing I did was try to start out every conversation in French and get a little bit further each time. I really, really suck at languages (English included) so most of my conversations involved only a few lines of French and then I would throw my arms up in the air and say, "Bo?" (Which I think was French for um). I never had a problem. They were really, really nice. If they knew no English then we would descend to sign language (not the official one) and even if they didn't understand me then I would be taken to someone else who could help. I once saw my Great Uncle have a great night drinking whiskey with a man in Grenoble. He couldn't speak French and the man could not speak English. None the less, they sang and laughed and ate and drank until the early hours of that night and then met up over the next few weeks to catch up.
I think you may have never learnt the first lesson of language, which is: It doesn't matter whether you can speak it or not, we are all human. When you give someone a hug, a smile, a laugh, a sparkle in your eye, throw your arms up in horror, look down in shame, roll your eyes, show your palms, frown, skew your mouth or hold your head. It is language. You may have to learn a few local variables. You may make mistakes. People will still relate and like you because you are human too.
Better luck next time. :) Try it again, they really are a wonderful people.
Re:Money is *the* universal language (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not? Brits and Americans do it in Paris.
Starting to think of your language as a secret code is a common delusion after being a few days in some environment where everyone else is speaking some foreign tongue.