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No it’s not a prerequisite. When I started programming I didn’t know English, and it didn’t matter. I actually learned the meaning of some words in English bec
by ecesena 8y ago
No it’s not a prerequisite. When I started programming I didn’t know English, and it didn’t matter.
I actually learned the meaning of some words in English because I knew them from programming.
One example is while (mentre in Italian), I knew the difference between a do/while vs a while loop in C, and that helped me with the meaning/use of while in the spoken language.
From time to time I discover that some words have a meaning in English, other than tech. For example ping, I thought for many years it was just a network command. In Italian we “Italianize” many words, for example I often say “pingare” (to ping), that has no meaning in my mother tongue, so often I don’t think it has to have a meaning in other languages as well.
As for typing in non-latin alphabets I don’t know. My 2 cents on the topic are that I buy US keyboards and set international layout to be able to type letters with accents (needed in Italian) vs I hate Italian layout with accents but no parenthesis for programming. So my guess would be no: you need a US keyboard and thus alphabet to program.
- helpme420 8y agoitaliaanoooo!
- juangacovas 8y agoMy case: I'm from Spain and I was 6 years old with a Commodore VIC-20: just "setup" papers were translated, the BASIC manual was in English, so you had to read English without really knowing the language. Those days I was years away of English classes from the National Education System. I would say that we "latinos", including Italians, tend to "latinize" words like "ping", in my case "pingear" (to ping) in Spanish.
- lou1306 8y agoYes! We do it all the time, even more often than necessary. Like, you could say "Set foo to 0" as "Setta foo a zero" and IT people will understand you, although "settare" is not even a verb (the correct translation would be "impostare")
- tigershark 8y agoSettare is an Italian verb: https://www.garzantilinguistica.it/ricerca/?q=settare https://www.garzantilinguistica.it/ricerca/?q=settare http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/settare/ http://www.treccani.it/vocabolario/settare/ It has been derived from the equivalent English verb, but nowadays it is a real Italian world. “Mouse” is another word borrowed from English while in Spanish for example it’s called “Raton”. In Italian you will never find anyone calling it “Topo”.
- serpix 8y agothe more senior IT people will also question why you are mutating variables :)
- icebraining 8y agoYou can learn programming without knowing English, but being a software engineer implies getting a job; could you get one without knowing English? I'm from Southern Europe too (and we also adapt words like "ping" :) but I can't imagine working with someone who can't read documentation of the libraries we use, or read an SO discussion or issue on the repository. I guess translation software may help, but still, I have to admit I would probably not hire them unless they were very good at other stuff.