3 ms·

So we should live in a world where Chinese programmers share knowledge only with Chinese programmes, Americans share among them and with Brits, Aussies and Cana

So we should live in a world where Chinese programmers share knowledge only with Chinese programmes, Americans share among them and with Brits, Aussies and Canadians, and Mexicans share with Spaniards? I'm not a native English speaker, and I have only to loose in this scenario.

detaro 8y ago
There are languages that allow more than ASCII, and that's not what happens in them.
- yorwba 8y ago
  For that matter, there are human languages besides English that can be written using only ASCII (sometimes by transliterating) and that's not what happens in them. Just like people know they have to write in English on HN to communicate, they also write their code in English when they plan to open-source it and share with the rest of the world. As for closed-source projects ... if your company doesn't conduct its business in English, why force the code to be in English? The only people whom that'd benefit are never going to see it.
krapp 8y ago
No one is claiming Chinese programmers should only code in Chinese, but to assert that they or anyone must code in American English for the convenience of Western programmers seems absurd. Should they also be forced to write all of their novels and perform all of their movies and music in English as well? We live in a multicultural world, one for which English as a default doesn't make sense in every context. Yes, it may be the case that Chinese, Spanish, Greek, German, Arabic, or other non-American ideogram using programmers write code primarily meant to be used and understood within their own culture. I see nothing wrong with that.
- kungtotte 8y ago
  Chinese programmers using ASCII and English names for things would also be of great help to all other East Asian programmers that aren't Chinese. Also what about the fact that while Mandarin is the largest language/dialect it's far from the only one in China? Using English/ASCII means all the programmers in China can understand each others code...
scrollaway 8y ago
Look, I worked for years in localization and I'm actually a proponent of English as a worldwide-spoken language. But I'm pointing out the irony in saying "Nothing worse than opening some code to find bizarro foreign language identifiers." when that is exactly how CJKHT(...) programmers, many of who do not speak a word of any western language, feel. Closer to the west, even people in countries that use cyrillic or greek alphabets are not necessarily familiar with latin transliteration and forcing it on them is dubious. I mean, yeah, this can be made a requirement of programming languages: After all, it was such a requirement for a long, long time. But it doesn't have to be anymore. BTW, full disclosure, I'm French and I find code written in french completely fucking unreadable. And that's 100% ASCII. As I said I believe code should be written in English, but I also don't think we should have essentially-artificial barriers for people to enter something as important as programming; those barriers only end up eroding the culture in question.

detaro 8y ago

There are languages that allow more than ASCII, and that's not what happens in them.

yorwba 8y ago
For that matter, there are human languages besides English that can be written using only ASCII (sometimes by transliterating) and that's not what happens in them. Just like people know they have to write in English on HN to communicate, they also write their code in English when they plan to open-source it and share with the rest of the world. As for closed-source projects ... if your company doesn't conduct its business in English, why force the code to be in English? The only people whom that'd benefit are never going to see it.

krapp 8y ago

No one is claiming Chinese programmers should only code in Chinese, but to assert that they or anyone must code in American English for the convenience of Western programmers seems absurd. Should they also be forced to write all of their novels and perform all of their movies and music in English as well? We live in a multicultural world, one for which English as a default doesn't make sense in every context. Yes, it may be the case that Chinese, Spanish, Greek, German, Arabic, or other non-American ideogram using programmers write code primarily meant to be used and understood within their own culture. I see nothing wrong with that.

kungtotte 8y ago
Chinese programmers using ASCII and English names for things would also be of great help to all other East Asian programmers that aren't Chinese. Also what about the fact that while Mandarin is the largest language/dialect it's far from the only one in China? Using English/ASCII means all the programmers in China can understand each others code...

scrollaway 8y ago

Look, I worked for years in localization and I'm actually a proponent of English as a worldwide-spoken language. But I'm pointing out the irony in saying "Nothing worse than opening some code to find bizarro foreign language identifiers." when that is exactly how CJKHT(...) programmers, many of who do not speak a word of any western language, feel. Closer to the west, even people in countries that use cyrillic or greek alphabets are not necessarily familiar with latin transliteration and forcing it on them is dubious. I mean, yeah, this can be made a requirement of programming languages: After all, it was such a requirement for a long, long time. But it doesn't have to be anymore. BTW, full disclosure, I'm French and I find code written in french completely fucking unreadable. And that's 100% ASCII. As I said I believe code should be written in English, but I also don't think we should have essentially-artificial barriers for people to enter something as important as programming; those barriers only end up eroding the culture in question.