4 ms·

This is some of the most self-centered reasoning I've seen on HN. Everyone should learn English to reduce your workload. It's almost a caricature of the stereo

This is some of the most self-centered reasoning I've seen on HN. Everyone should learn English to reduce your workload. It's almost a caricature of the stereotypical redneck who has never left the country and gets mad when they overhear someone speaking Spanish at Fiesta, muttering "but this is America" under their breath.

gear54rus 8y ago
Everyone should learn English to reduce everyone's workload. I had to learn it just like anyone else who understands the need and is not a native speaker.
TeMPOraL 8y ago
Maybe some see it as self-centered, but I find it resonates with me strongly. Now that we're a global civilization, life would be much simpler of global-scale things get standardized. Like, if metric system was adopted everywhere. If people used ISO 8601[0] instead of whatever is their random way of writing time down. If people used one well-defined number format. Etc. IMO what's really being self-centered is - when dealing with international things like the Internet - to insist on making everyone else's life harder for the sake of whatever random local tradition you grew up with. And I say that as European with plenty of weird localized ways of writing dates, numbers, currencies, etc. Ways which I abandoned pretty much as soon as I got exposed to computing. -- [0] - https://xkcd.com/1179/ https://xkcd.com/1179/
- gear54rus 8y ago
  How is it self-centered though? There's not 'self' here. My profession (IT) is not the only profession that requires translations. They are required everywhere and so what I am saying is applicable everywhere. My nationality is not in question either, because I am not a native speaker. How is that self centered?
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    It's self centered because you have already crossed that bridge.
    - TeMPOraL 8y ago
      I'd say sometimes not crossing that bridge, which leads to a common meeting place, and instead insisting that everyone caters to your side is self-centered, but I just recognized that the exact same argument can be used against my position that most websites should be usable without JavaScript... Oh the irony.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        For years the computing world had the position that if it couldn't be expressed in ASCII7 then 'fuck you'. Of course might makes right and all that but this goes beyond a couple of diacriticals. Finally with UTF-8 and i8n we now have a somewhat level playing field where for those that want we can exchange information. The segregation between these language spheres on the web is incredibly effective. For instance, the Spanish and the English web rarely link to each other (and if they do it is most likely a link from the Spanish part to the English part). Ditto with many other language pairs. A single world language is a nice thing to strive for, but I don't see why it would have to be English by default, even though that's what it probably will end up being anyway. The French have always felt that their language is somehow special and that it should be given preference in the EU, and until not all that long ago it was the 'official' language in quite a few European countries by virtue of being the language of the wealthy. For the longest time the Dutch driving license still had the words 'permis de conduire' on it for that reason (and not as a convenient translation for any French police that might take an interest in the document). French as a second language was the default, English a distant third. That's all changed now, but it is no different if it is imposed rather than of free will. So if you want to go to that common meeting place that's fine, but if you're forced to go that common meeting place because a bunch of tech bozos have decided your culture, script and language don't matter because they have already mastered English because it was a requirement for them to be employed then that isn't.
    - gear54rus 8y ago
  - falcolas 8y ago
    > How is that self centered? "I find it to be too much work, and I derive no value from it, so we shouldn't do it."
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Hey, I'm actually arguing your case :). I find sticking to local customs to be self-centered, because "why should I change to accommodate other people?".
- Rapzid 8y ago
  Mmmmm, lexicographically sortable. I prefer the RFC3339 profile, but YES to ISO-8601 for anything meant to be readable by a human. It's loony how many different formats are in use on the wire and internally in programs.
lmkg 8y ago
> It's almost a caricature It IS a caricature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

gear54rus 8y ago

Everyone should learn English to reduce everyone's workload. I had to learn it just like anyone else who understands the need and is not a native speaker.

TeMPOraL 8y ago

Maybe some see it as self-centered, but I find it resonates with me strongly. Now that we're a global civilization, life would be much simpler of global-scale things get standardized. Like, if metric system was adopted everywhere. If people used ISO 8601[0] instead of whatever is their random way of writing time down. If people used one well-defined number format. Etc. IMO what's really being self-centered is - when dealing with international things like the Internet - to insist on making everyone else's life harder for the sake of whatever random local tradition you grew up with. And I say that as European with plenty of weird localized ways of writing dates, numbers, currencies, etc. Ways which I abandoned pretty much as soon as I got exposed to computing. -- [0] - https://xkcd.com/1179/ https://xkcd.com/1179/

gear54rus 8y ago
How is it self-centered though? There's not 'self' here. My profession (IT) is not the only profession that requires translations. They are required everywhere and so what I am saying is applicable everywhere. My nationality is not in question either, because I am not a native speaker. How is that self centered?
- jacquesm 8y ago
  It's self centered because you have already crossed that bridge.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    I'd say sometimes not crossing that bridge, which leads to a common meeting place, and instead insisting that everyone caters to your side is self-centered, but I just recognized that the exact same argument can be used against my position that most websites should be usable without JavaScript... Oh the irony.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      For years the computing world had the position that if it couldn't be expressed in ASCII7 then 'fuck you'. Of course might makes right and all that but this goes beyond a couple of diacriticals. Finally with UTF-8 and i8n we now have a somewhat level playing field where for those that want we can exchange information. The segregation between these language spheres on the web is incredibly effective. For instance, the Spanish and the English web rarely link to each other (and if they do it is most likely a link from the Spanish part to the English part). Ditto with many other language pairs. A single world language is a nice thing to strive for, but I don't see why it would have to be English by default, even though that's what it probably will end up being anyway. The French have always felt that their language is somehow special and that it should be given preference in the EU, and until not all that long ago it was the 'official' language in quite a few European countries by virtue of being the language of the wealthy. For the longest time the Dutch driving license still had the words 'permis de conduire' on it for that reason (and not as a convenient translation for any French police that might take an interest in the document). French as a second language was the default, English a distant third. That's all changed now, but it is no different if it is imposed rather than of free will. So if you want to go to that common meeting place that's fine, but if you're forced to go that common meeting place because a bunch of tech bozos have decided your culture, script and language don't matter because they have already mastered English because it was a requirement for them to be employed then that isn't.
  - gear54rus 8y ago
- falcolas 8y ago
  > How is that self centered? "I find it to be too much work, and I derive no value from it, so we shouldn't do it."
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Hey, I'm actually arguing your case :). I find sticking to local customs to be self-centered, because "why should I change to accommodate other people?".
Rapzid 8y ago
Mmmmm, lexicographically sortable. I prefer the RFC3339 profile, but YES to ISO-8601 for anything meant to be readable by a human. It's loony how many different formats are in use on the wire and internally in programs.

lmkg 8y ago

> It's almost a caricature It IS a caricature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law