Why knowing English is important for every software developer • Hacker News Board

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#41

Post by saraid216 » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:11 AM UTC

neebz wrote: post #16

I cannot tell you how much I agree with this. When someone in US says good communication skills are important, they think it's racist. I am from Pakistan. When I tell colleagues to master English, they think I am still mentally under British imperialism. There is a huge trove of knowledge on the internet which you can only benefit from if you can read/write English. It was only after I focused on my English that I wa…

> I am from Pakistan. When I tell colleagues to master English, they think I am still mentally under British imperialism.

They're not wrong. It's just that you're right.

If they're bothered by the imperialism, then they should get to work translating.

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#42

Post by jeena » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:16 AM UTC

erhardm wrote: post #11

I definitely agree. I choose to study CS in English because of this. CS is made to be taught in English. I have a friend who was struggling in English and when she applied for a job the interviewer didn't even asked how her English was, all the interviewer questions were in English.

I once had a job interview at Opera (the browser) in Oslo. They said: "Ok we want you to work here, but you _really_ need to improve your English." That was a couple of years ago and it was literally the first time I spoke more then one sentence in English in a conversation outside of School, haha :D Since then I did improve it quite a lot.

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#43

Post by simias » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:17 AM UTC

Hellion wrote: post #34

bdcravens wrote: post #31

Ignorant American here, asking of the non-native English speakers: As most (every?) programming language is "in English", does this impair understanding? (for, in, throw, select, from - all English words whose meanings are more or less in line with the programming concept they define) (Even Ruby, created by a Japanese, is "English") For those who write/type in languages that require Unicode: since you typically code…

I know that many programming languages (for example C), have long had tokenizers that are non-English. So the language is the same, the words are different.

I remember in high school they simply used a header file that redefined the keywords of the language in french.

Something like "#define SI if" #define "TANT_QUE while" etc...

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#44

Post by captainpiggies » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:19 AM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #31

Ignorant American here, asking of the non-native English speakers: As most (every?) programming language is "in English", does this impair understanding? (for, in, throw, select, from - all English words whose meanings are more or less in line with the programming concept they define) (Even Ruby, created by a Japanese, is "English") For those who write/type in languages that require Unicode: since you typically code…

Can't talk for everyone but I always use English in all my code for everything (Variables, Database, Filenames etc.) Because it's a real pain to be consistent otherwise. In the beginning I used to write parts of my code in German because I thought it would be easier to understand but it just made my life harder in the long run because I had to deal with inconsistencies all the time.

And after my initial trouble with some special characters like the French accents (é, è, à etc.) and the German umlauts (ä, ö, ü) I made myself do everything in ASCII.

General rule is: Code and back-end stuff 100% English and only basic ASCII characters. Front-end in UTF-8/LAT1 but when possible avoid placing special chars in code (example ü in HTML only as ü not as ü)

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#45

Post by saraid216 » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:19 AM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #31

Ignorant American here, asking of the non-native English speakers: As most (every?) programming language is "in English", does this impair understanding? (for, in, throw, select, from - all English words whose meanings are more or less in line with the programming concept they define) (Even Ruby, created by a Japanese, is "English") For those who write/type in languages that require Unicode: since you typically code…

> do modern languages support Unicode for things like variable names?

They do, but there's not much point in taking advantage of it outside of string literals: you're risking someone whose environment isn't set up to handle it coming in and getting barfed over for... what marginal benefit, really?

I googled "unicode variable names" and got this: http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Unicode_variable_names

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#46

Post by k__ » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:21 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #37

k__ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're so right. Here in Germany are many people who don't want to speak english, even if they had it at school for 13 years... But if I wouldn't speak english, I had to read german news only or couldn't use stackoverflow. 90% of the newest technology would be useless for me, because I couldn't read any documentations or tutorials.

I vaguely remember Linux Torvalds saying he developed linux in English, and it didn't really occur to him to develop it in Finnish, since English is a better language for dealing with technical issues. From my (potentially quite flawed) understanding, English, French, and German are all good languages for capturing technical concepts, but English won out in general, simply because it's much bigger - more native speak…

I think English is also easier than many languages.

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#47

Post by hershel » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:21 AM UTC

I wonder: isn't that becoming true for all knowledge work?

With the great university courses available in english(MOOC), best web content both formal(research journals) and informal(forums/sites) available in english, And tools usually give error messages in english ,doesn't english give huge advantage in most knwoledge areas ?

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#48

Post by captainpiggies » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:23 AM UTC

Hellion wrote: post #34

bdcravens wrote: post #31

Ignorant American here, asking of the non-native English speakers: As most (every?) programming language is "in English", does this impair understanding? (for, in, throw, select, from - all English words whose meanings are more or less in line with the programming concept they define) (Even Ruby, created by a Japanese, is "English") For those who write/type in languages that require Unicode: since you typically code…

I know that many programming languages (for example C), have long had tokenizers that are non-English. So the language is the same, the words are different.

On a similar note Excel commands are probably the most infuriating thing since I learned programming fro me because they are all in the regional language in my case German and make no sense to me now. (Example IF is WENN in German)

It drives me nuts.

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#49

Post by spindritf » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:29 AM UTC

ESR also considers it a core skill for a hacker[1].

This whole controversy is completely manufactured.

[1] http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills4

Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer

#50

Post by jeena » Mon, Sep 02, 2013, 8:29 AM UTC

vacri wrote: post #37

k__ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're so right. Here in Germany are many people who don't want to speak english, even if they had it at school for 13 years... But if I wouldn't speak english, I had to read german news only or couldn't use stackoverflow. 90% of the newest technology would be useless for me, because I couldn't read any documentations or tutorials.

I vaguely remember Linux Torvalds saying he developed linux in English, and it didn't really occur to him to develop it in Finnish, since English is a better language for dealing with technical issues. From my (potentially quite flawed) understanding, English, French, and German are all good languages for capturing technical concepts, but English won out in general, simply because it's much bigger - more native speak…

Or because the Germans lost WW2. It would be interesting to see another time-line in which they didn't just to test my hypothesis.

"... German advanced to become one of the most important languages of science and scholarship, and at the beginning of the twentieth century ranked above English and French, especially in the sciences. In order to keep abreast of the latest developments, scientists and scholars all over the world learned German, a circumstance that contributed to German’s becoming one of the most widespread foreign languages. With the end of the First World War, the “primal catastrophe” of the twentieth century, a reverse tendency arose. Germany and Austria had been economically ruined by the war and were in no position to invest in research and knowledge to the same degree as before. ..." (from http://www.goethe.de/ges/spa/pan/spw/en3889454.htm )