3 ms·

Say you're implementing a field-specific solution, do you use the US English term or the term that's written on the users know? (specs, documentation, etc) If

by mgbmtl 10y ago

Say you're implementing a field-specific solution, do you use the US English term or the term that's written on the users know? (specs, documentation, etc) If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? There's also a huge risk in having a translation error. We're programmers, not translators. For general variable names, I agree. On the other hand, in my experience, when the programmers aren't fluent enough in English, if English is imposed, they tend to choose really bad variable names and not comment their code properly. So I tend to impose clear names/doc over imposing a specific language.

krzyk 10y ago
In Poland it is generally assumed that a programmer knows English, most of the companies here are just branches of companies from other countries (not only US/UK based) and to communicate we use English as a common ground. Another factor to consider is that if we write in language that has some constructs (e.g. C - if/then/else/while/return/int/double/class/void etc.) then writing: if (znalezione) { ... } looks awkward. Also one has to consider popular libraries and functions/methods/classes in them are English based, so this would add even more awkwardness to the code: zwierzęta.stream() .filter(z -> z.kończyny().contains(noga)) .map(z -> z.toString()) .collect(Collectors.toList());
- mgbmtl 10y ago
  As I said, I'm not talking about the basics, but more especially for field-specific terminology, comments, etc. I agree with you, but the example you gave is more common than you think. We tend to over-estimate people's language skills. (keep in mind, English is not my native tongue, I'm including myself in there and it's not meant as an attack, just something we need to deal with, and I would not outright exclude bilingual code)
lazaroclapp 10y ago
One problem for a startup (as opposed to a consulting firm), is that you would eventually want to have geographically distributed offices and teams, though. So if you start with a code-base in something other than english and then end up opening an office in Ireland, Germany, Singapore or India you will likely end up rewriting into english anyways (never mind the Bay Area, Seattle or NYC, which you will likely need before your company reaches 10,000 developers...).
pzh 10y ago
> If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? That's why my startup uses language-neutral variable names like i, j, k and x, y, z.
- K0SM0S 10y ago
  Some advocates of code "expressiveness" would like (or perhaps dread) a word with your lead... ;) Joke aside, for anyone curious: we use such i, j variables for abstract logic like a counter (e.g. i=0 at the beginning of a loop, and gets incremented by 1 each time the loop runs), or booleans maybe (e.g. P=0 or 1, true or false). But generally it is considered good practice to give names to variables that are self-explanatory (e.g. studentName or vehicle_age) for readability and ease of understanding. Even counters and booleans should be significant when possible (e.g. "hasResponded" or "day_num"). On topic, I think english or not doesn't matter theoretically. Its cultural and indeed 80% of computing/code happens in english on earth (no source, waddayathink!). What matters imho is that semantics are correct (both human and machine language...) and reasonably meaningful to a collaborator. To anybody wanting to know better: read open-source code. Best school there is, actual practice.

by mgbmtl 10y ago

krzyk 10y ago

In Poland it is generally assumed that a programmer knows English, most of the companies here are just branches of companies from other countries (not only US/UK based) and to communicate we use English as a common ground. Another factor to consider is that if we write in language that has some constructs (e.g. C - if/then/else/while/return/int/double/class/void etc.) then writing: if (znalezione) { ... } looks awkward. Also one has to consider popular libraries and functions/methods/classes in them are English based, so this would add even more awkwardness to the code: zwierzęta.stream() .filter(z -> z.kończyny().contains(noga)) .map(z -> z.toString()) .collect(Collectors.toList());

mgbmtl 10y ago
As I said, I'm not talking about the basics, but more especially for field-specific terminology, comments, etc. I agree with you, but the example you gave is more common than you think. We tend to over-estimate people's language skills. (keep in mind, English is not my native tongue, I'm including myself in there and it's not meant as an attack, just something we need to deal with, and I would not outright exclude bilingual code)

lazaroclapp 10y ago

One problem for a startup (as opposed to a consulting firm), is that you would eventually want to have geographically distributed offices and teams, though. So if you start with a code-base in something other than english and then end up opening an office in Ireland, Germany, Singapore or India you will likely end up rewriting into english anyways (never mind the Bay Area, Seattle or NYC, which you will likely need before your company reaches 10,000 developers...).

pzh 10y ago

> If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? That's why my startup uses language-neutral variable names like i, j, k and x, y, z.

K0SM0S 10y ago
Some advocates of code "expressiveness" would like (or perhaps dread) a word with your lead... ;) Joke aside, for anyone curious: we use such i, j variables for abstract logic like a counter (e.g. i=0 at the beginning of a loop, and gets incremented by 1 each time the loop runs), or booleans maybe (e.g. P=0 or 1, true or false). But generally it is considered good practice to give names to variables that are self-explanatory (e.g. studentName or vehicle_age) for readability and ease of understanding. Even counters and booleans should be significant when possible (e.g. "hasResponded" or "day_num"). On topic, I think english or not doesn't matter theoretically. Its cultural and indeed 80% of computing/code happens in english on earth (no source, waddayathink!). What matters imho is that semantics are correct (both human and machine language...) and reasonably meaningful to a collaborator. To anybody wanting to know better: read open-source code. Best school there is, actual practice.