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Other Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest. But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare s
by flexie 9y ago
Other Scandinavian countries are also doing quite well, way beyond what their size would suggest.
But also well beyond other countries with developed welfare systems, such as France. I think these discussions always miss one key factor: Language.
If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. If you don't get into software development at an early age, you are much less likely to do a software based startup when you are in your twenties. There is a thousand times as much documentation, conferences, tutorials, courses, online fora etc in English as in other languages and this is how new ideas in IT spread. Only months or years afterwards, it's translated to Spanish or Chinese, and only if it has caught on. Just about everything new in IT spreads through English, whether it's AI or web development or anything else.
The Scandinavian languages are not that different from English, the countries are small and consume a lot of music, movies, TV etc from the US/UK. Movies and TV have never been dubbed, except for toddlers. So for the last 50-60 years or more, Scandinavians have been quite good at English. Your average 70 year old Scandinavian speaks English better than your average 20 year old Italian. A drunkard on a bench in Scandinavia is likely to speak better English than most academics I've met in Southern or Eastern Europe.
We live in an era of software driven startups. It's easy to forget that it was not always like that. There were times when successful businesses were driven by mechanics (GM), electronics (Sony), chemistry (Kodak), trade or other factors. Now it's software, and whether your language, framework, or library of choice is C, C++, Python, Lisp, Java, PHP, JS, HTML, CSS, Tensorflow, React, or almost any other tech that the unicorns are built with, the new developments in that tech will initially have spread from English speakers to English speakers. The fact that the largest software companies in the last two decades have all been American then reinforces that trend.
- johankmagnusson 9y agoI think you are right in this being one of the important factors as well. I'm Swedish and my toddlers never watched any YouTube content in Swedish. Pretty much all they ever watch is in English. I wasn't too surprised this summer when visiting some friends in England and I heard my 4 year old girl say complete sentences like: "yeah, I'm coming down Toby" to her English playmate. Thanks YouTube and Apple!
- tnzn 9y agoFrance's safety net is shit for auto entrepreneurs so this could explain that.
- Iv 9y agoHealthcare is still free. Let's stay a bit smug in front of our mainly US audience.
- flexie 9y agoStill doesn't explain why I can't name a hugely popular programming language, library or framework created by a French programmer but several by Swedes, Norwegians, Danes, and Dutch, all small countries but where English is a very strong second language. I'm sure there are great French programmers and programming languages, but doesn't is strike you as remarkable that there are not more? From a country of 5 million (Denmark) you got the creators or cocreators of C++, C#, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Turbo Pascal etc. From a country of 60 million you got ...? France is a a power house in so many other engineering fields like nuclear power, auto industry, aviation etc so they clearly have engineering talent. But in software, not so much.
- sambe 9y agoDoes England produce a lot of languages/frameworks? I encounter quite a few French developers internationally (with relatively bad English skills...)
- galeaspablo 9y agoSymfony.
- mlevental 9y ago>If you don't speak English quite well at an early age (already at 10-13 years old) you are much less likely to get into software development at an early age. china and russia beg to differ?
- flexie 9y agoThere are many great Russian and Chinese developers but little Russian or Chinese software has spread outside those countries. Except viruses, maybe
- CydeWeys 9y agoI think the point is, though, that there's plenty of resources available in Mandarin and Russian to be able to get really good at programming from a young age, even if you don't learn English until later. Contrast with, say, an African child of well-to-do parents who has access to computers and the Internet but who doesn't (yet?) speak English. Good luck finding lots of coding resources.
- thrownblown 9y agovue.js
- flexie 9y agoYes, that's one. A good one :-)
- nnq 9y agoThe percent of English speaking people is probably like 4x in China or Russia vs. France or Spain. And you don't need "speaking fluency", just "advanced reading comprehension skills" to get most advantages... I could read advanced academic papers written in English (not just technical, also philosophy and economics) well before my speaking fluency was good enough to make "live conversation" well. Of course, there is a horrible side to it: coming from Eastern Europe and living in Western Europe, I need to "dumb down" my English a lot, and to force myself to talk slower in English when speaking with French/Italian/Spanish (French are the worse btw - never met people harder to communicate efficiently with than them... even when their language skills are ok they sprinkle that "context dependency" and "nonobviousness" into everything) people that speak "English" but are actually only fluent in a lifeless subset of "standard international business English"...
- elnygren 9y agoI'm Finnish (the lang is nowhere near English) and I've begun coding in my early 20s and I'm a technical co-founder (who actually knows his stuff). I don't think language is the reason here. Good education, smart people, good safety nets and a culture of doing things well & properly are IMHO better explanations. About the culture thing: go to anywhere in Europe/World and you'll find out that the Nordic countries in general have very clean cities and all broken things like door knobs etc. are replaced faster. Design & architecture is very simple, functional and there isn't much "kitsch" to be found. I'd say this helps in startups too: you'll find people who really want to do their job well and build a solid product.
- danschuller 9y agoAre you saying Frances broken door knobs and fondness for kitsch is holding them back?
- magnusjonsson 9y agoThat is not what he said.
- elnygren 9y agoThank you :D
- elnygren 9y agoWell if you can't get out of the building and you're losing focus to all that useless stuff lying around in your office... ;)
- jk2323 9y agoHTML was created in Switzerland. Linux in Finland. Not sure what "software" companies are for you. Google? Well, China has enough Internet counterparts (Tencent, Wechat, Alibaba etc.). Softbank (Japan) just bought ARM (UK). Regarding "software" companies like Microsoft, SAP (DE) is quite a decent size. Nokia (Fi) was once leading edge too. Sure you have not heard about Skype and Transferwise, but they do exist. Maybe you should come out of your little bubble once in a while?
- flexie 9y agoHTML was based on the ideas of a British national, Tim Berners-Lee. He spoke English. So did Linus Thorvalds, and the founders of Skype and Transferwise. ARM and Nokia are/were not mainly software companies, but producers of chips and cell phones (where software is a part). Not sure what bubble you are talking about.
- jk2323 9y agoZuckerberg speaks Chinese. What is your point? That being multilingual makes you a better programmer?