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Programming languages are in English though. The keywords are pulled from English, the names of functions are clearly made up of English words, the documentatio

Programming languages are in English though. The keywords are pulled from English, the names of functions are clearly made up of English words, the documentation is in English first and often only English, the untranslated error messages are in English, the filenames are in English. Already speaking English is a massive advantage in understanding and working with all of that.

stoicShell 7y ago
> Already speaking English is a massive advantage in understanding and working with all of that. I think we're past that, it's become a de facto prerequisite now. You just can't become a programmer without at least written comprehension. You'll learn English anyway as you learn programming; but you'd do yourself a favor to double down — my suggestion: immerse yourself as much as possible, switch all your systems to English, watch only English TV, video, music, books, articles, etc. After 3-6 months, most people reported to me a "huge" leap forward, and within 2 years they can watch most TV un-subtitled (live shows are harder because less scripted, less grammatically formal I suppose, more idiomatic). In terms of programming and tech in general, a keen understanding of English helps understanding much of the subtext, the intent, the "between the lines" meaning of techs, concepts, namespaces. The same is true in some martial arts: in some countries, they have you learn only the original (say, Japanese) name of a technique. The problem is that it's hard to remember, it means nothing, it's just a burden; whereas it literally usually means simply what it does: "wrist torsion", "quick stun hit", etc. It may seem nothing but taking the time to translate all of it (at least), understand the language (at best), tells you a lot that you never hear because, well, it's obvious to those who speak it, and oblivious to those who don't. Cultural barriers are most confounding when they are invisible, unbeknownst to us. TL;DR; English is almost necessary to be autonomous in programming and tech in general, even if you can learn without you just won't be able to navigate such a fast moving landscape and make deep sense of it.
zzzcpan 7y ago
Keywords, names, filenames don't retain their meanings from English, so it's not important where they came from. And error messages use the same few English words, but mostly all those keywords, names, filenames. Documentation available in local languages is the only important part here. But documentation and other reading materials is an issue for people who are already many years in programming and the deeper they go into the field, the more necessary it becomes to learn English.

stoicShell 7y ago

> Already speaking English is a massive advantage in understanding and working with all of that. I think we're past that, it's become a de facto prerequisite now. You just can't become a programmer without at least written comprehension. You'll learn English anyway as you learn programming; but you'd do yourself a favor to double down — my suggestion: immerse yourself as much as possible, switch all your systems to English, watch only English TV, video, music, books, articles, etc. After 3-6 months, most people reported to me a "huge" leap forward, and within 2 years they can watch most TV un-subtitled (live shows are harder because less scripted, less grammatically formal I suppose, more idiomatic). In terms of programming and tech in general, a keen understanding of English helps understanding much of the subtext, the intent, the "between the lines" meaning of techs, concepts, namespaces. The same is true in some martial arts: in some countries, they have you learn only the original (say, Japanese) name of a technique. The problem is that it's hard to remember, it means nothing, it's just a burden; whereas it literally usually means simply what it does: "wrist torsion", "quick stun hit", etc. It may seem nothing but taking the time to translate all of it (at least), understand the language (at best), tells you a lot that you never hear because, well, it's obvious to those who speak it, and oblivious to those who don't. Cultural barriers are most confounding when they are invisible, unbeknownst to us. TL;DR; English is almost necessary to be autonomous in programming and tech in general, even if you can learn without you just won't be able to navigate such a fast moving landscape and make deep sense of it.

zzzcpan 7y ago

Keywords, names, filenames don't retain their meanings from English, so it's not important where they came from. And error messages use the same few English words, but mostly all those keywords, names, filenames. Documentation available in local languages is the only important part here. But documentation and other reading materials is an issue for people who are already many years in programming and the deeper they go into the field, the more necessary it becomes to learn English.