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Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

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Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#51

Post by lmkg »

davidcollantes wrote: post #39

A really bad idea. Now a really good answer or tip that would otherwise be on the 'regular' stackoverflow (albeit in broken English) will remain, unknown, on a 'pt.overflow.' That is one drawback. Another drawback, an English only stackoverflow helps a Portuguese speaking person to learn another language that is, now, more universal. Yet another, it fractures an otherwise more unified community. My mother tongue is S…

> * Now a really good answer or tip that would otherwise be on the 'regular' stackoverflow (albeit in broken English) will remain, unknown*

This assumes that, had the Portuguese site not existed, the question would have been answered on the English site. There is also the possibility that the question would not have been answered at all.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#52

Post by raganwald »

tsm wrote: post #31

This is one of the few situations where I side strongly with ESR: http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills4

Even if he happened to be right about his contention, this isn't the point at all. The question here is, "Should a programming service be offered in a language other than English?" Whereas ESR is claiming, "Programmers should learn to write English proficiently."

Imagine, if you will, that Silicon Valley is THE place to live if you want to be a programmer. Alice has job advice: "Move to Silicon Valley."

Now imagine that Bob wishes to open a hackerspace code+cafe in New York. Should we really tell him that this is a bad idea? Is it somehow a terrible idea to help programmers who chose to ignore Alice's advice to be productive? Is it somehow undermining TheGrandPlan™ to support a programmer in New York City?

Are we "fragmenting the hacker community" by opening a cafe in NYC?

I can't think of any good reasons not to make Stack Overflow available in Portuguese. And any or every other language. An argument to keep SO English-only might as well be accompanied by an argument that there should be no conference talks in any language except English, no programming books in any language except English, and no help or online documentation in any language except English.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#53

Post by gtirloni »

frade33 wrote: post #9

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…

This is pure bullshit in so many ways. There is no stubbornness. Why do you assume that?

Speaking English is not a magic thing that will remove a country from a bad conditionm, if that's what you're assuming.

Moreover, other countries like India and Pakistan may have other pressing issues to solve before learning a second language (e.g. sanitation, education, etc).

Or they might not need it at all! Their country or region might be advanced enough or self-sustaining that they don't need to hook in the US-fueled economy that much. East Europe? Japan?

India and Pakistan are not "thriving in IT" because of English alone. It's more related to people willing to work for 1/50th of what a US employee would ask for. And the language and technical skills come second usually.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#54

Post by cbaleanu »

dsr_ wrote: post #30

When I tell someone I work at Stack Exchange, my absolute favorite response is: “I basically learned to code from posts I found on Stack Overflow” --- While I've never had anyone tell me that, I don't think I'd be happy to hear that in an interview.

Because knowing not to write a bubble sort or fizz buzz implementation in Modula-2 without googling for some language reference makes you so much better.

SO is a part of a developers every-day life, like it or not. This is not the 90s anymore, we have knowledge at our fingertips, we should access it and deliver that product or whatever is we're working on faster, without getting stuck in stuff that can be solved with one google search.

edit: spelling

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#55

Post by davidcollantes »

lmkg wrote: post #51
davidcollantes wrote: post #39

A really bad idea. Now a really good answer or tip that would otherwise be on the 'regular' stackoverflow (albeit in broken English) will remain, unknown, on a 'pt.overflow.' That is one drawback. Another drawback, an English only stackoverflow helps a Portuguese speaking person to learn another language that is, now, more universal. Yet another, it fractures an otherwise more unified community. My mother tongue is S…

> * Now a really good answer or tip that would otherwise be on the 'regular' stackoverflow (albeit in broken English) will remain, unknown* This assumes that, had the Portuguese site not existed, the question would have been answered on the English site. There is also the possibility that the question would not have been answered at all.

Sight. Sorry, I really can't explain it well.

Have you ever encountered something, sometimes, that you know doesn't click, but can't explain why? I really think this is a bad idea, and somehow, a waste of resources, a repetition of things. But...

It will affect me little if I pretend it doesn't exist and continue using stackoverflow as I have been until now. Just ignore 'the news' and move on.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#56

Post by Dewie »

davidcollantes wrote: post #39

A really bad idea. Now a really good answer or tip that would otherwise be on the 'regular' stackoverflow (albeit in broken English) will remain, unknown, on a 'pt.overflow.' That is one drawback. Another drawback, an English only stackoverflow helps a Portuguese speaking person to learn another language that is, now, more universal. Yet another, it fractures an otherwise more unified community. My mother tongue is S…

> My mother tongue is Spanish, yet I have no issues with an English only stackoverflow, at all.

Someone who knows English has no problem with an English only Stackoverflow. Amazing.

The fact that non-native English speakers might prefer English only sources is a red herring; they already know English. Of course perusing English sources makes more sense to us; we already know English to such degree that communicating in it is about as painless as communicating in our native tongue, and focusing mostly on English sources gives is a looot more meaty information. I could read some Wikipedia article in my own tongue, or I could get 5 times more information of perhaps higher quality by reading it in English.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#58

Post by oscargrouch »

People barely now this, but theres a social inclusion aspect by creating the portuguese version of StackOverflow.

In Brazil, at least, only the kids of wealthy families have access to private english courses..

In regular school its just too weak to make a difference.. and of course there are the self-taughts.. a minority..

So, there are a very good social inclusion aspect in all of this.. make the rookie programmers start with the portuguese version.. then maybe they will just hit the english with time.. imposing a language barrier is a sort of elitism that will create a virtual barrier that doesnt do good to anyone..

I dont know why people rant about it, since all the good content is already in english language..

Allow even more people to enter into the technology world is a good thing.. let them learn english later, when theres a need..

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#59

Post by lelandbatey »

chc wrote: post #19
drdaeman wrote: post #6

> 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 idea of centralization is not inherently incompatible with the idea of categorization. And it's really not that hard in most cases. Is it an objective question about writing code? It goes on Stack Overflow. Is it about programming as a broader topic? It goes on Programmers. Is it about servers or systems administration? It goes on ServerFault. Is it about general computing? It goes on SuperUser. Is it a highly su…

See, but what if I'm writing a little script using Bash to run on my server? Does it go in Unix? Or programming? Or serverfault?

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#60

Post by dm2 »

ishener wrote: post #29

instead of starting a brand new stack overflow in another language they should think of some way of letting people translate questions & answers and earn karma for that. this way, like wikipedia, you can always go from one language to another for the translation

That's basically what they are doing.

If someone asks a question on the Portuguese then it would be easy for an English and Portuguese speaker to search the English site for the answer and then post to the Portuguese site and earn their karma.

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