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> Without Googling, name any famous developer from Japan. Or China. Or Russia. Many Ruby developers won't have a problem with this.
Roberto Ierusalimschy Waldemar Celes Luiz Henrique de Figueiredo The folks behind Lua (programming language)
I see it as a remarkably good thing that engineering (and to some extent science) has standardised so much on English and I can only hope that all other walks of life will as well.
It would be so nice if everyone on earth spoke excellent English.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. Matz immediately came to mind. Also, to the question of english but not native would be Salvatore of Redis fame.
So, not to be mean, but can you name his FQJN (fully-qualified Japanese name) offhand? The score of people here saying "Matz" somewhat underscores the issue.
> Without Googling, name any famous developer from Japan. Or China. Or Russia. Yukihiro Matsumoto. Rasmus Lerdorf. Guido van Rossum.
I speak 3 languages and understand 4. Talking about programming, computer science and technology in non-Engish is awkward. It either is necessary to just use English terms anyway for every other noun or struggle with awkward translation of them.
Things like kernel, doubly linked list, hash table, binary tree, greedy algorithm, they are all invented in English and when translating them to other languages, they have a translation but it just sounds very awkward.
So you can have 2 people talking and one uses all translated terminology one uses the "native" equivalent. And yeah if both happen to speak English they'll understand what they mean, but if they don't then they might as well speak different languages. But if they already speak English and it is a public forum, might as well try to speak English.
Anyway that is just my perspective.
While I agree having a non-English version helps growing the community (as pointed out in the article it could help a young girl to get started), but I am worrying about fragmentation. Also, SO tends to be pretty strict about the way a post is written - so a little girl who is making a post will either be closed or forced to edit. I don't know - it is as if I want people to take the hard route because it can benefit them in the long run.
I really have a mixed feelings about this too.
Side note:
That probably limits the list of potential candidates to Mandarin, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian...
Hmmm it's Chinese since people write in Chinese characters. Mandarin is a dialectic.
I personally get a kick out of communicating with people in other languages. It almost seems like a super power.
> We do want as much centralization as possible Yup, totally centralized. Spent half an hour figuring out where my question should go (StackOverflow vs Programming vs ServerFault vs SuperUser vs Ubuntu vs Unix-and-Linux). Ended up not asking the question at all. Shall they open some foreign embassies, I guess users'll spend 10 minutes more deciding in which language should they ask (i.e. whenever they prefer native l…
The important point is that the moderation should encourage the participation of the not native speakers. If someone post a good question or answer with a few grammatical mistakes, then the expected behavior should be to fix the text and not mock the author.
If you feel like wanting to give back to the community, answer in your native language site, if it exists.
[Disclaimer: I’m a native Spanish speaker, ES-AR to be more precise.]
Adoption of English language is one of the major reasons, why 3rd world countries like our, India and Pakistan are thriving in IT. I feel sad for nations, who are stubborn in their adoption of English language, merely out of political reasons. Even from a political perspective, this is sad, because you can't convey your point of view to others. Oh and by the way, India is 2nd and Pakistan is 3rd largest country by nu…
Do you play music? I feel sorry for all those countries who are stubborn in their adoption of Italian, for whom "da Capo al fine" or simply "Largo" are rote words to memorize rather seeing them in an Italian context. Even from a political perspective, this is sad, because you can't convey your point of view to others.
See how ludicrous this sounds? Yet indeed, just like our programming languages use "if" "case" "return" et al ("et al" is a Latin abbreviation by the way), music uses Italian keywords. Yet it's perfectly reasonable to read source code in French with anglicisms like new String scattered perfectly comprehensively throughout. It doesn't inhibit the programmer at all.
Now to fully embrace your point: the number of Mandarin speakers (as a first or second language) is probably about 1.3x the total number of English speakers (as a first or second language). The implicit question of the linked article is: "perhaps there is, or soon will be, a larger pool of programming discussion for which YOU are excluded because you, merely out of political reasons, won't learn Mandarin Chinese.
English is by far my favorite language to speak, but I know its limitations and don't always use it even when I can. I've noted that if I'm out with friends who all have multiple languages in common the conversation does not stay in only one of them. In programming or not, I will often read wikipedia articles on the same topic but in different languages. Quality is uneven and the most informative or insightful article is frequently not the one in English.
> Without Googling, name any famous developer from Japan. Or China. Or Russia. Many Ruby developers won't have a problem with this.
I mean, Matz obviously knows English.