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> There's a reason why e.g. air traffic control speaks english no matter the ethnicity (as per the ICAO standard). Yes. The reason is that air traffic control

> There's a reason why e.g. air traffic control speaks english no matter the ethnicity (as per the ICAO standard). Yes. The reason is that air traffic control inherently requires people from different regions and languages to communicate quickly in life or death situations. Ease of being an air-traffic controller is not a primary motivating factor, and getting more diverse input isn't really a useful feature. On the other hand, ease of being a developer should be something we strive for. We don't generally deal with fast paced life or death communication, we instead want programming to be accessible, to get a range of people (and their input, experience, opinions) involved, and to break down unnecessary barriers. Programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier.

johnisgood 7y ago
What do you mean exactly by "programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier", and why is reducing this barrier to strive for? I believe English as a common language is a good thing for communication, for understanding each other. It could have been any other languages I suppose, but today it is English. It may change. I cannot even talk about programming in my first language because I would not have gotten any use out of it. It would not have been beneficial to me to learn the terminology in my first language. English, however, was pretty much beneficial. I am not sure that division here would be beneficial to the field, but this is just my opinion. Yes, it is a barrier for people who, for some reasons, are not willing to learn the common language which, today, is English. Is it a bad thing? In my opinion, it is not. It could be a way of expressing your dedication and willingness in some cases. I wanted to understand, and I wanted to be understood, and knew that learning English was the way to do it, so I learnt it. Having many different languages would defeat the purpose of what having a common language gives us, which binds us together.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
DeusExMachina 7y ago
> Programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier. Not really. I learned programming when I was 14, far before learning English. How many English constructs do you have in a programming language? Func, var, for, if, else, import, etc. You can memorize those in no time, especially if you do that as you learn programming. Documentation and textbooks are a different thing, of course. But I learned programming in high school, from teachers speaking my language and with textbook in my language.
- fermuch 7y ago
  I started programming at age 10, with game maker. I cannot stress how useful having icons for each operation is. I remember not knowing what a loop was (I didn't even understand what a variable was), but having the "steps" icon made it clear to me that it was run on every step the player makes (which is approximate, but IIRC it was simply a while loop)
- Mirioron 7y ago
  >How many English constructs do you have in a programming language? Func, var, for, if, else, import, etc. Func and var aren't even English words. Even an English speaker would have to at least get confirmation that their guess is right. You could replace them with arbitrary symbols and it wouldn't rally really change anything.
  - big_chungus 7y ago
    See APL, equally horrendous for everyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)
    - hhas01 7y ago
      Not for those who professionally speak Mathematics; which is the audience APL was made to serve, after all. Amusing so many programmers will complain how they feel horribly excluded by APL, but see no issue with every other programming language in existence speaking exclusively ASCII English. At least Math is a true lingua franca, unlike our awful Saxon bodge. I know which I'd be safer speaking when Aliens come to visit. https://youtu.be/t2TDf9XU09k?t=120 https://youtu.be/t2TDf9XU09k?t=120
missosoup 7y ago
> On the other hand, ease of being a developer should be something we strive for. Yeah, no. I want to strive for a field of professionals who know what they're doing instead of every second 'engineer' being a script kiddie with a MOOC or two of Python under their belt and nothing else. The barriers need to come way up from where they are today, not be lowered even further.
- rfhjt 7y ago
  Should we introduce a license to publish math papers? This should supposedly raise the overall level of mathematicians.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    There is a license if you want to hit a nonzero audience. It's called peer review. It's merit based. You might have heard about it.
- danpalmer 7y ago
  I'm not talking about lowering standards, I'm talking about lowering barriers. The difference is that barriers are things that aren't necessary. It is not necessary to be male, white, or English speaking, to be an excellent engineer, and yet those groups are significantly over represented.
  - missosoup 7y ago
    > I'm not talking about lowering standards, I'm talking about lowering barriers. One and the same. Making it easier to join a group necessarily lowers the barrier for joining said group which necessarily lowers the standard of said group. There are entire books written about this problem which leads to it being impossible to build large above-average skilled teams. No need to bring identity politics into engineering practice. They have as much place here as they do in getting a pilot license. There is a minimum bar to pass, and part of that bar is speaking a common parlance with members of your professional body from the rest of the world. I'm sorry you feel upset that English happened to be the language of choice for that, I personally just invested the time to learn it. I get paid more than doctors or pilots with the same amount of experience as me, so I'm not going to start complaining about satisfying the same language requirements that they deal with.
konstmonst 7y ago
I think if you are programming in a native language programming language, there is a problem, that you can not find enough help and you don't have things like stackoverflow. You don't immediately see useful patterns and answers to questions and the effectiveness of the language and of your understanding is reduced. Unless you have a personal teacher, I think, learning a native programming language is not a good idea, because you will be limiting yourself, you will learn wrong patterns. You will not be standing on the shoulders of (many)others before you and the quality of your understanding will be not as good. I also think a lot of skill comes from cross language disciplines, and limiting yourself to one native langue is not a good idea. Better to invest time and learn english subset used in programming. Then you can read interesting code of others, which was reviewed by more eyes than your native programming language.
trevordixon 7y ago
> Programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier. There are only a handful of English words you have to memorize. Music students have to memorize a handful of Italian words to follow written music. It hasn't been a problem.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  Standard libraries are large and named in English. It's a lot more than a few English words.
rtkwe 7y ago
You don't really have to learn the language to program in it though you can just know "import" means include this library, that's a harder task than just being able to read for sure. I think the biggest issue is when you have to use a different script than your native language (and keyboard). To code in Arabic, Chinese, or Russian I'd have to completely relearn how to type.

johnisgood 7y ago

What do you mean exactly by "programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier", and why is reducing this barrier to strive for? I believe English as a common language is a good thing for communication, for understanding each other. It could have been any other languages I suppose, but today it is English. It may change. I cannot even talk about programming in my first language because I would not have gotten any use out of it. It would not have been beneficial to me to learn the terminology in my first language. English, however, was pretty much beneficial. I am not sure that division here would be beneficial to the field, but this is just my opinion. Yes, it is a barrier for people who, for some reasons, are not willing to learn the common language which, today, is English. Is it a bad thing? In my opinion, it is not. It could be a way of expressing your dedication and willingness in some cases. I wanted to understand, and I wanted to be understood, and knew that learning English was the way to do it, so I learnt it. Having many different languages would defeat the purpose of what having a common language gives us, which binds us together.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

DeusExMachina 7y ago

> Programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier. Not really. I learned programming when I was 14, far before learning English. How many English constructs do you have in a programming language? Func, var, for, if, else, import, etc. You can memorize those in no time, especially if you do that as you learn programming. Documentation and textbooks are a different thing, of course. But I learned programming in high school, from teachers speaking my language and with textbook in my language.

fermuch 7y ago
I started programming at age 10, with game maker. I cannot stress how useful having icons for each operation is. I remember not knowing what a loop was (I didn't even understand what a variable was), but having the "steps" icon made it clear to me that it was run on every step the player makes (which is approximate, but IIRC it was simply a while loop)
Mirioron 7y ago
>How many English constructs do you have in a programming language? Func, var, for, if, else, import, etc. Func and var aren't even English words. Even an English speaker would have to at least get confirmation that their guess is right. You could replace them with arbitrary symbols and it wouldn't rally really change anything.
- big_chungus 7y ago
  See APL, equally horrendous for everyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APL_(programming_language)
  - hhas01 7y ago
    Not for those who professionally speak Mathematics; which is the audience APL was made to serve, after all. Amusing so many programmers will complain how they feel horribly excluded by APL, but see no issue with every other programming language in existence speaking exclusively ASCII English. At least Math is a true lingua franca, unlike our awful Saxon bodge. I know which I'd be safer speaking when Aliens come to visit. https://youtu.be/t2TDf9XU09k?t=120 https://youtu.be/t2TDf9XU09k?t=120

missosoup 7y ago

> On the other hand, ease of being a developer should be something we strive for. Yeah, no. I want to strive for a field of professionals who know what they're doing instead of every second 'engineer' being a script kiddie with a MOOC or two of Python under their belt and nothing else. The barriers need to come way up from where they are today, not be lowered even further.

rfhjt 7y ago
Should we introduce a license to publish math papers? This should supposedly raise the overall level of mathematicians.
- missosoup 7y ago
  There is a license if you want to hit a nonzero audience. It's called peer review. It's merit based. You might have heard about it.
danpalmer 7y ago
I'm not talking about lowering standards, I'm talking about lowering barriers. The difference is that barriers are things that aren't necessary. It is not necessary to be male, white, or English speaking, to be an excellent engineer, and yet those groups are significantly over represented.
- missosoup 7y ago
  > I'm not talking about lowering standards, I'm talking about lowering barriers. One and the same. Making it easier to join a group necessarily lowers the barrier for joining said group which necessarily lowers the standard of said group. There are entire books written about this problem which leads to it being impossible to build large above-average skilled teams. No need to bring identity politics into engineering practice. They have as much place here as they do in getting a pilot license. There is a minimum bar to pass, and part of that bar is speaking a common parlance with members of your professional body from the rest of the world. I'm sorry you feel upset that English happened to be the language of choice for that, I personally just invested the time to learn it. I get paid more than doctors or pilots with the same amount of experience as me, so I'm not going to start complaining about satisfying the same language requirements that they deal with.

konstmonst 7y ago

I think if you are programming in a native language programming language, there is a problem, that you can not find enough help and you don't have things like stackoverflow. You don't immediately see useful patterns and answers to questions and the effectiveness of the language and of your understanding is reduced. Unless you have a personal teacher, I think, learning a native programming language is not a good idea, because you will be limiting yourself, you will learn wrong patterns. You will not be standing on the shoulders of (many)others before you and the quality of your understanding will be not as good. I also think a lot of skill comes from cross language disciplines, and limiting yourself to one native langue is not a good idea. Better to invest time and learn english subset used in programming. Then you can read interesting code of others, which was reviewed by more eyes than your native programming language.

trevordixon 7y ago

> Programming in a foreign language is a pretty significant barrier. There are only a handful of English words you have to memorize. Music students have to memorize a handful of Italian words to follow written music. It hasn't been a problem.

UncleMeat 7y ago
Standard libraries are large and named in English. It's a lot more than a few English words.

rtkwe 7y ago

You don't really have to learn the language to program in it though you can just know "import" means include this library, that's a harder task than just being able to read for sure. I think the biggest issue is when you have to use a different script than your native language (and keyboard). To code in Arabic, Chinese, or Russian I'd have to completely relearn how to type.