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Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

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Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#61

Post by couchand »

yeukhon wrote: post #46

I am an immigrant from China and I came to the States after finishing sixth grade so I can still read and write in Chinese. Perfectly excellent. The advantage of that is I can utilize more resources that are only available in Chinese. You'd surprise how often Chinese programmers leave useful code snippets or tips in Chinese. So knowing a foreign language can definitely help. While I agree having a non-English version…

A point of clarification: the new site has intentionally relaxed rules. SO is a mature site that can afford to have stricter criteria, but pt.so is still in its infancy and the protocol is growing to meet the needs of the community that forms there.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#62

Post by Guvante »

AndyKelley wrote: post #38

So why start a duplicate place for knowledge? Seems much simpler to integrate a translation system into the canonical English database. Existing entries can be translated into other languages and then improved upon. Hell, you could automate the entire first step and then crowd source the improvements.

Actually they are kind of doing that already. Someone who is fluent in both can arbitrage between the two for reputation.

Honestly you wouldn't want to translate all of SO anyway, there is a lot of cruft when you build up a huge database of information.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#63

Post by davidcollantes »

Dewie wrote: post #56
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…

I learned English because of my interest on technology, and because I saw it not at as disadvantage, but the opposite.

Yet again, if it was up to me, I would set Latin or Esperanto as a 'universal' language and be done with it. :-)

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#64

Post by TillE »

cbaleanu wrote: post #54
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…

Stack Overflow is great for reference or solving specific problems. It's pretty awful for learning anything in depth.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#65

Post by 6cxs2hd6 »

> 10% of the world’s programmers are in China

> 1.4% of our visits come from China

> Only 4.8% of our visits come from China, Japan and Korea combined

> So, if the data tell us that we’re getting roughly 80% less activity from Asia than we should in the absence of language constraints, why does it feel so obvious that all serious programmers speak English?

That data says it's less. It doesn't say the reason why is language constraints.

p.s. With or without this data, sure, it's obviously false that "all serious programmers speak English", and obviously true that some more people will participate using their native language.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#66

Post by mhp »

AndyKelley wrote: post #38

So why start a duplicate place for knowledge? Seems much simpler to integrate a translation system into the canonical English database. Existing entries can be translated into other languages and then improved upon. Hell, you could automate the entire first step and then crowd source the improvements.

If the only goal was to present what exists in other languages, this would be a great idea. Your suggestion results in translations for all the people searching for content in a language other than English. But it doesn't allow those people to participate in return. You need the community of PT speakers to succeed (which is the whole reason we have separate sites for different topics, and the reason why we believe our model is better for expert answers than Yahoo Answers, Quora, et al).

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#67

Post by maximgsaini »

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…

I see English as more of a liability for a country like India. Only 10% of the Indian elites have any sort of proficiency in English. Indians never developed an 'infrastructure' around their native language like China did, which results in a debilitating problem for India. There is a big language barrier in India. A poor Chinese kid doesn't need to learn a foreign language to be hired as a full time programmer. But in India, unless you have a working proficiency in English, say goodbye to any chances of being hired as a programmer. Say goodbye to any real possibility of using a computer. Say goodbye to the possibility of understanding any real biochemistry. In India, I can't take a guy from the streets, give him 2 days of training and ask him to do some work on a computer. I'll have to spend 2 months with him, teaching him a new language.

Thus now there are two Indias, the 80-90% non-english speaking India, and the 10-20% english speaking elite India. And the language barrier makes it that much harder for the under-privileged India to cross over to the other side, which is not the case in China or Japan.

In 10 years, the kind of language used for human communication will become irrelevant. Thus, I hope that the Indian problem won't last very long.

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#68

Post by gus_massa »

fauria wrote: post #44
fauria wrote: post #11

> Without Googling, name any famous developer from Japan. Or China. Or Russia. Yukihiro Matsumoto. Rasmus Lerdorf. Guido van Rossum.

Maybe I should have added "Or Denmark. Or Netherlands.", but the idea is the same.

In Denmark and Netherlands, they use almost the same letters than in English. In Japan, China and Russia, they use other scripts, so the names are more difficult to Google unless you use some kind of transliteration or nickname.

For example, there was a very important Russian mathematician Чебышёв, every book transliterates his name in a different way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pafnuty_Chebyshev

Re: Why Stack Overflow in Portuguese?

#70

Post by edmccard »

lelandbatey wrote: post #59
chc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

>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?

That would depend on why help was needed--is it a problem with expressing a certain programming concept in Bash? or with portability across various Unixen? Or with the proper way to invoke some server managament program?

If someone genuinely doesn't know which stackexchange community has the most relevant expertise to help with a problem, there's a mechanism in place to handle that; just post a question somewhere and see if it gets migrated or closed as "belongs on xxx".

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