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Programming is almost always conducted in English, even if the application itself as well internationalized and can be used from different languages. Even API d
by djhaskin987 6y ago
Programming is almost always conducted in English, even if the application itself as well internationalized and can be used from different languages. Even API documentation is almost always written in English regardless of the country of origin of the author. The only exception I can see to this rule is programs and docs written in China.
Everywhere else, it's reasonable to assume that if you're a programmer, you speak English and likely have an English keyboard. This may not be fair, but it is the state of affairs.
You likely own a US keyboard not only for the parentheses problem, but because of all sorts of English isms throughout all code -- alphanumerics, urls, etc are all in Latin script. It's like German in the field of mathematics in the 19th century.
- GolDDranks 6y agoIt's reasonable to assume that you speak English, but not so reasonable to assume that you have an English (US or UK, for example) keyboard. Basically all of us have keyboard with Latin letters, that are perfectly up to the task of writing "normal" English, but the seldom used braces and brackets are behind some alt-gr shenanigans. Yes, they are symbols that are used in many programming languages. No, it's not reasonable to assume that they are easy to type for all of us.
- mantap 6y agoIt is reasonable to assume that anybody writing code is using the US keyboard layout. That is the de facto standard and standards are important. Anybody who deviates from that is doing so at their own risk. If you want to use Dvorak or Azerty instead of Qwerty then you can do that, it's just not advisable because things like Vim will no longer make sense. If you try to write code using a layout that doesn't have all the ascii printable symbol characters in accessible locations then you're creating a special kind of hell for yourself. It takes like 30 seconds to change to US layout.
- dgellow 6y ago> It is reasonable to assume that anybody writing code is using the US keyboard layout. That is the de facto standard and standards are important. That’s not reasonable at all. You have way more people writing code outside of the US than within. The US layout may be the most represented one, I don’t know statistics on this, but I would expect it to be on the losing side when comparing US layout vs non-US layout. Though I would agree that having access to ASCII is something you need, but any standardized keyboard layout in the world can do that via modifiers, if not directly.
- setr 6y agoIts reasonable in the sense that the decision was already made, by history & circumstance, and that it's largely not that problematic and well supported (out of necessity). The only alternatives would be to converge on a lowest common demoninator, and have a likely more inconvenient syntax for all parties, or to diverge into regional-specific dialects, which unicode shows to be.. wide.. and generally make code sharing much harder. This is really more of a "many mostly equivalent solutions, but one needs to be picked" scenario -- and it would be time poorly spent trying to undo the incumbent solution (and will naturally be rendered untenable by endless bike-shedding anyways). The worst of all solutions -- except for all the others
- YawningAngel 6y agoLots of non-US based programmers use a US layout anyway though, so I think it's a pretty reasonable assumption in the context of English language programming
- IceDane 6y agoI don't think that's reasonable to think at all. Literally no one I know locally that is also a programmer uses the American layout. The difficulties of inputting symbols with ex. altgr is overstated. I really don't think most people use the American layout. That's just typical america-centric narcissism.
- dgellow 6y agoI don’t get your issue with modifiers such as alt-gr. I grew up with a mix of Swiss (swiss qwertz) and French layout (azerty), and have my own custom layout since around 10 years, all of them require to use modifiers just to write my main languages and that hasn’t been an issue since I was a kid. If you use a non US layout it’s very likely that you already use modifiers quite often, I don’t understand why that would become an issue once you start writing code.
- sneak 6y agoUnfortunately this is not the case. Many, many people use laptops, and getting laptops with non-local keyboard layouts is Really Quite Difficult. You usually have to go to the place where the layout is native to buy it. External keyboards, sure. But many of us are laptop-only. Sure, you can remap the keys, but also, not everyone is a touch typist.
- alkonaut 6y agoI speak Swedish and code/message/email in English for work, but I still need to type Swedish occasionally so my keyboard is Swedish both in hardware (layout) and software (mapping). Curly brackets etc use hand-twisting alt-gr combinations on a Swedish layout so I’d be better off using a US keyboard mapping so I can type ([{ using only shift. I have tried and failed to make that switch. It would probably just slow me down for a month or so before it made me faster, but I’ll keep pushing my square-wheeled cart thank you.
- sacado2 6y agoEven if your code is written in English, some text still has to be written in your own language (in particular, anything the end user will happen to read). And, although you can write English from a (say) French keyboard, writing French from an English keyboard is a PITA.
- hocuspocus 6y ago> writing French from an English keyboard is a PITA. There's no English keyboard. Writing French with the US international layout is actually pretty easy.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- _ph_ 6y agoThere are US English and English UK keyboards, both a very similar, and very dissimilar from French and German keyboards. I would challenge you to tell me how you type the following letters "easily" on an US international keyboard: ä ö ü ß.
- hocuspocus 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_American_keyboards#/media/File:KB_US-International.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_and_American_keyboards... The umlaut is a dead key so it's very easy. ß is AltGr or Option + S which I admit is a bit more annoying, but your spellchecker should take care of that, no? (I'm Swiss so even when I have to type in broken German, we don't use the ß here). All layouts are tradeoffs. Not using the US layout makes a lot of things annoying in our field. I write code and use my IDE's keyboard shortcuts more than I need to write long texts in my native language.
- LandR 6y agoIf I set my layout to US then @ and " swap. So " is Shift+' and @ is shift+2 In UK keyboard layout, @ is shift+', and " is shift+2 (which is what is shown on my keyboard keys).
- _ph_ 6y agoNo, it is not reasonable to assume that people, who are fine at speaking English, are using an English keyboard layout. I am using a German keyboard layout, as I want to be able to use my native language, and that is not possible with an English layout. However, as I am a touch-typist, I cannot switch keyboard layouts frequently, so I have to go with the German one.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoI can touch-type in Russian and English layouts. My favorite keyboard is British up to the point of me specifically picking a laptop/physical keyboard with a British layout. Just learn both and you'll be OK.
- _ph_ 6y agoLucky for you, that you managed to learn to touch type on the different layouts. It might help though, that Russian and English are entirely different layouts. The problem with German and English layouts is, that they are mostly identical, and only about 10% of them differ. This makes it very difficult to master both layouts at the same time. I tried it for a while, when I had to use an English layout temporarily. My experience was, that it thoroughly made my typing worse on both layouts.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoI've got friends who used the phonetic version of Russian keyboard where about 80-90% of the letters are going to be similar phonetically. All of them can touch-type by now. The thing with touch-typing is that you don't think so you have to go through a period of discomfort.
- _ph_ 6y agoI am very proficient with touch typing. But in my experience, mixing German and English keyboards erroded my skills considerably.
- 6y ago