English is not my native language, although my entire schooling and upbringing were in English. One of the resources I found useful in improving the quality of the written word was "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk. The e-book can be found on Bartleby (http://www.bartleby.com/141/) or, if you so prefer, a dead tree version is available on Amazon.
Why knowing English is important for every software developer
51–60 of 67 posts
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#52Ignorant 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…
Ruby 1.9 and 2.0 supports Unicode variables (1.9 requires a special line at the top of the file).
Outside of some cute usage of the Pi symbol (because he could) I haven't seen it used in the wild.
Most Japanese programmers I know / whose code I have seen just use the romaji text for their variables names if they are still thinking in Japanese. (i.e. "tesuto" instead of "test" or "yuza_banngo" for "user_id")
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#53I've often said that English is to programming as Latin is to medicine. Programmers will be writing "if" statements and "for" loops long after no one uses "if" or "for" in daily conversation. So it is as important for programmers to understand English as it is for doctors to understand Latin. Of course, most doctors may understand Latin, but they wouldn't be able to converse in Latin. In that sense, English is also t…
I work in Sweden for an international company, and I have several non-Swedish colleagues in my office.
I never have any problems expressing myself in a work-setting, but as soon as we start talking about every-day things it's more of a challenge. Knowing the name of different kinds of food, house-hold items, literature... you immediately notice a language barrier that is not there when we use the "programmer lingua franca".
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's an uncommon contraction, also at first glance, it reads like another word, one that refers to someone who offers professional sexual services.
Uncommon, sure, but still correct. Myself, I like "who'd've" and similar. Never seen in written English, but quite common in spoken English. Who'd've thought you could put two apostrophes in the one contraction? :)
> Who'd've thought you could put two apostrophes in the one contraction?
Yes, and perhaps more interestingly, what will it look like 500 years from now? Many common modern words that we assume to be self-contained turn out to be pastiches of two or more older words. Like "shire reeve" -> sheriff.
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#55I'd like to offer a counter-point here.
I work in a Chinese company with more than 200 Chinese programmers, I'm the only foreigner.
It is obviously important for a software developer to "know English", and all my colleagues do, just as it is important to know how to find your way in a reference book, or how to ask a question to Google and StackOverflow. It is a tool, an important tool, but only a tool.
What I have experienced more than often is that young Chinese people who are proficient in English and spent a lot of time getting their accent out of the way, are not always the best hackers and the most interesting persons. For them English is more than a tool, and they spend less time coding and more time discussing about code.
So to all these pro-English posts here: Yes, it is necessary; but only as a tool, and should not become a finality (unless we are talking about students in linguistics).
Why would I insist on making this point here and there (and get holes in my HN karma)? Because insisting on "fluent spoken English" and "Foreign accent" just makes life more miserable and humiliating to the so many people who open their mind and their life to the world, by the mean of this new Lingua Franca.
Americans know no fear, feel no shame. It's what makes them so strong and optimistic and creative. "Shy american" is an oximoron, but "Shy Chinese" (or Japanese) is a tautology. Let's not forget that other people are made differently.
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#56I 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…
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.
Same in France. It's all about acquiring knowledge that's only available in English. For example, I'm pretty sure that the only database systems documented in French are MySQL and PostgreSQL. Only those who can read English (and are not reluctant to) can use the alternatives.
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sir, your English is superior comparing to mine!
I would suggest three things (apart from the obvious 'speak in english with others'): #1 read english books. translate every unknown word from dictionary. the words improve vocabulary; the sentences improves grammar. #2 watch english movies with english subtitles. this helps greatly in understanding the accent. plus english in movies is a hell lot easier than the one in books. #3 talk to yourself in english. there wa…
I would like to warn about #2 - actually I would say watching movies with English subtitles can really slow down the learning process. The brain consumes enormous amounts of energy and in our past it was critical to our survival to save as much energy as possible - that's why the brain is wired to turn off (I am simplyfying here) the parts that are not needed right now. When you watch the movie with subtitles your brain 'knows' that it is getting the information via easy reading channel and turns off or tunes down the listening channel to save energy - this is an automatic process that you cannot control.
Understanding what you are hearing, recognizing words is a very specific skill and to get better at this we need to practice this specific skill, we need to get over that annoying stage when you just don't understand what they are saying and you need to listen to it five times to finally get it - when you turn on subtitles you may practice other skills (grammar, vocabulary... skills which can be better acquired by reading books) but you basically turn off acquiring 'understanding' skill. That's one of the reasons why there are so many people who are very good at grammar and vocabulary and can easily read and write but cannot watch a movie or talk to someone because they cannot understand spoken word.
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#58I've often said that English is to programming as Latin is to medicine. Programmers will be writing "if" statements and "for" loops long after no one uses "if" or "for" in daily conversation. So it is as important for programmers to understand English as it is for doctors to understand Latin. Of course, most doctors may understand Latin, but they wouldn't be able to converse in Latin. In that sense, English is also t…
Actually English has completely replaced Latin in medical circles as the Ligua Franca. Even the terminology (still based on Latin though) is English.
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
while I don't have access to another timeline, russia, china and (to some extent) france did win the war, but none of their language became a new lingua franca.
I'd suppose the closest thing to a nazi-controlled-germanized-europe would be the USSR (people escaping, restrictions on freedoms hindering creativity, no colonies speaking the same language, trade issues with the rest of the world) which in fifty years failed to establish a linguistic dominance even in aligned countries.
Re: Why knowing English is important for every software developer
#60Ignorant 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…
When I learned Basic as a kid (8–9 years old I think), I just learned what the reserved words (rem, print, goto, gosub, return, if then else, etc.) did in the context of my programs: 'goto' literally meant "jump to this line" etc.
It was somewhat later that I realized that my 'goto' is actually derived from English words 'go' and 'to'.
So if goes like this:
- 8 yrs old: learn 'while' in the context of Basic
- 10 yrs old: learn 'while' in the context of English classes at school
- 14(?) yrs old: suddenly realize if you remove the space from then English "go to", it becomes the Basic 'goto', and a-ha, maybe that is not a coincidence.
I actually just right now realized what the 'wend' in the while...wend loop is made of (in the English sense). Hah.