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Not at all. People preferred to use english to feel some connection to the world. That was mostly psychological. A Silicon Valley cargo cult if you wish. Also

Not at all. People preferred to use english to feel some connection to the world. That was mostly psychological. A Silicon Valley cargo cult if you wish. Also the company always avoided any use of external contractors.

viraptor 4y ago
I think you're reading to much into this. It's easier to not switch languages in one task. If you're using an English-based programming language and English libraries/frameworks, you're not going to name your own variables in a different language. Comments most often follow that too. Any time I see someone attempt that, it's extremely distracting.
- pshirshov 4y ago
  Not really. I've attended a meeting on the subject where people decided to use English "not to be loosers" and I've heard similar stories from other teams and departments.
  - viraptor 4y ago
    And what do they understand by "not be losers" in that case? What are the main ideas behind it?
    - pshirshov 4y ago
      Something like "if someone can't read English he is a bad engineer, if you write comments for bad engineers, you either are a bad engineer or a loser". I've heard things like "we should grow up and use English". They wanted to be an "elite" in contrast with russian-speaking "peasants". The rational decision to use English was often motivated irrationally and was not about switching keyboard layouts. There were numerous discussions on the subject. That is hard to analyze, I'm not a psychologist.
      - timka 4y ago
        The OSS community that I grew up in speaks English and the software world is largely based on English. I really enjoy reading nicely written source, well commented in good English, with concise naming (again in English). And we're forced into a situation where programming languages are based on English. And I also enjoy even more writing not purely technical higher level documentation in Russian, expressing general ideas and approaches. Russian developers with little or no experience in international environment often suck even at naming things in proper English, especially methods/functions. How many times have I seen grammar errors in APIs? But some of those guys are really great engineers who just aren't that much into spoken languages. Some of them aren't great writers even in Russian. Yes, sometimes the source they write will certainly insult someone else's sense of beauty. But is there anything we can do about it? We can do something but still some people just aren't good at languages. I think we should just accept that it and stop worrying. And those whose sense of beauty is being insulted should think why they choose to use their knowledge and abilities as a weapon against their teammates or as a decoration to create a false sense of superiority. Pretty sure many of them do this out of their inner insecurity or because of attachment (unhealthy perfectionism, insulted sense of beauty). Also I think that projectional (structural) editors may change this situation or at least give us some insights on how natural languages affect the way we structure our software.
  - jeltz 4y ago
    Interesting. I have never seen that attitude here in Sweden. If only Swedes are present we speak Swedish despite all our documentation, code and comments always being written in English. Could be due to all Swedes in tech (while most Swedes have good English it is not universal outside tech) being able to speak good English so there is no reason to show off.
- GoblinSlayer 4y ago
  Programming languages aren't really based on English. I'd say they are farther from English than English is from Proto-Indo-European.
  - viraptor 4y ago
    They use English keywords, English documentation, English reference to the standard library, until recently were mostly restricted to English alphabet, and their development is mostly discussed in English.
    - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
      Right, English uses some Proto-Indo-European words too. And Go designer compained that byte[] isn't English enough, so they did []byte, which is apparently perfectly English.
int_19h 4y ago
People prefer to use English in software engineering contexts because most terminology is English anyway, so even if you're talking in Russian, you're still коммитишь чейнджсеты с багфиксами для релиза and so on. While most technical terms have nominal translations, they're usually so unwieldy that even people who are aware of them don't use them. But if they try to, others will have a hard time understanding them. And if it's going to be half-English either way, might as well just do it all in English. If nothing else, it saves time switching keyboard layouts.
- timka 4y ago
  In mid-00's I used to be frequent at a pub that was popular among expats and oil and IT industry professionals. I met a guy from the US there who was a professional translator and interpreter. He once told me that when he has to translate a business letter he finds Russian really cumbersome but when it comes to poetry he finds Russian so beautiful that English will never sound close to that. Also he gave me his copy of Stephenson's Snow Crash. When I complained that it was so hard to read he answered that for him reading Lermontov is also a struggle. What a guy!
  - int_19h 4y ago
    Highly inflective languages are generally better for poetry because you can make so many more things rhyme with some creative effort. Having a lot of similar sounds (like all the hard/soft consonant pairs) also helps.
    - xwolfi 4y ago
      And poetry is so much more than the rhymes: it could be that this person didn't really know English poetry as well as Russian poetry, or that he was more easily impressed by exotism. I read French natively and have been living in English for 10 years and can now read Snow Crash-like stuff, and English always amazes me more than French, just because it can be so much richer than I'll ever produce myself, stuck to my French roots. So if I read at random this in English: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43844/she-walks-in-beauty https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43844/she-walks-in-be... and this in French: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Contemplations/R%C3%A9ponse_%C3%A0_un_acte_d%E2%80%99accusation https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Contemplations/R%C3%A9pon... , I can feel a mysterious beauty in English maybe I can't feel in a French poem, while the French one explodes in meaning, makes me think more than contemplate. Rhymes are like a little funny exercise in poetry to add some music, but really far from the goal, or so I hope. I feel it's one of the many inputs: you have the rhymes, the rhythmic internal divisions of the stanza, the symmetry between them across the text, and you can add lots of little funny meta-meaning by reversing meaning in two halves of two successive stanzas, stuff like that. A poem is just a text that does more than transfer information at the first level, but does it on many more. English, Russian or French, they can all do it.

viraptor 4y ago

I think you're reading to much into this. It's easier to not switch languages in one task. If you're using an English-based programming language and English libraries/frameworks, you're not going to name your own variables in a different language. Comments most often follow that too. Any time I see someone attempt that, it's extremely distracting.

pshirshov 4y ago
Not really. I've attended a meeting on the subject where people decided to use English "not to be loosers" and I've heard similar stories from other teams and departments.
- viraptor 4y ago
  And what do they understand by "not be losers" in that case? What are the main ideas behind it?
  - pshirshov 4y ago
    Something like "if someone can't read English he is a bad engineer, if you write comments for bad engineers, you either are a bad engineer or a loser". I've heard things like "we should grow up and use English". They wanted to be an "elite" in contrast with russian-speaking "peasants". The rational decision to use English was often motivated irrationally and was not about switching keyboard layouts. There were numerous discussions on the subject. That is hard to analyze, I'm not a psychologist.
    - timka 4y ago
      The OSS community that I grew up in speaks English and the software world is largely based on English. I really enjoy reading nicely written source, well commented in good English, with concise naming (again in English). And we're forced into a situation where programming languages are based on English. And I also enjoy even more writing not purely technical higher level documentation in Russian, expressing general ideas and approaches. Russian developers with little or no experience in international environment often suck even at naming things in proper English, especially methods/functions. How many times have I seen grammar errors in APIs? But some of those guys are really great engineers who just aren't that much into spoken languages. Some of them aren't great writers even in Russian. Yes, sometimes the source they write will certainly insult someone else's sense of beauty. But is there anything we can do about it? We can do something but still some people just aren't good at languages. I think we should just accept that it and stop worrying. And those whose sense of beauty is being insulted should think why they choose to use their knowledge and abilities as a weapon against their teammates or as a decoration to create a false sense of superiority. Pretty sure many of them do this out of their inner insecurity or because of attachment (unhealthy perfectionism, insulted sense of beauty). Also I think that projectional (structural) editors may change this situation or at least give us some insights on how natural languages affect the way we structure our software.
- jeltz 4y ago
  Interesting. I have never seen that attitude here in Sweden. If only Swedes are present we speak Swedish despite all our documentation, code and comments always being written in English. Could be due to all Swedes in tech (while most Swedes have good English it is not universal outside tech) being able to speak good English so there is no reason to show off.
GoblinSlayer 4y ago
Programming languages aren't really based on English. I'd say they are farther from English than English is from Proto-Indo-European.
- viraptor 4y ago
  They use English keywords, English documentation, English reference to the standard library, until recently were mostly restricted to English alphabet, and their development is mostly discussed in English.
  - GoblinSlayer 4y ago
    Right, English uses some Proto-Indo-European words too. And Go designer compained that byte[] isn't English enough, so they did []byte, which is apparently perfectly English.

int_19h 4y ago

People prefer to use English in software engineering contexts because most terminology is English anyway, so even if you're talking in Russian, you're still коммитишь чейнджсеты с багфиксами для релиза and so on. While most technical terms have nominal translations, they're usually so unwieldy that even people who are aware of them don't use them. But if they try to, others will have a hard time understanding them. And if it's going to be half-English either way, might as well just do it all in English. If nothing else, it saves time switching keyboard layouts.

timka 4y ago
In mid-00's I used to be frequent at a pub that was popular among expats and oil and IT industry professionals. I met a guy from the US there who was a professional translator and interpreter. He once told me that when he has to translate a business letter he finds Russian really cumbersome but when it comes to poetry he finds Russian so beautiful that English will never sound close to that. Also he gave me his copy of Stephenson's Snow Crash. When I complained that it was so hard to read he answered that for him reading Lermontov is also a struggle. What a guy!
- int_19h 4y ago
  Highly inflective languages are generally better for poetry because you can make so many more things rhyme with some creative effort. Having a lot of similar sounds (like all the hard/soft consonant pairs) also helps.
  - xwolfi 4y ago
    And poetry is so much more than the rhymes: it could be that this person didn't really know English poetry as well as Russian poetry, or that he was more easily impressed by exotism. I read French natively and have been living in English for 10 years and can now read Snow Crash-like stuff, and English always amazes me more than French, just because it can be so much richer than I'll ever produce myself, stuck to my French roots. So if I read at random this in English: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43844/she-walks-in-beauty https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43844/she-walks-in-be... and this in French: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Contemplations/R%C3%A9ponse_%C3%A0_un_acte_d%E2%80%99accusation https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Contemplations/R%C3%A9pon... , I can feel a mysterious beauty in English maybe I can't feel in a French poem, while the French one explodes in meaning, makes me think more than contemplate. Rhymes are like a little funny exercise in poetry to add some music, but really far from the goal, or so I hope. I feel it's one of the many inputs: you have the rhymes, the rhythmic internal divisions of the stanza, the symmetry between them across the text, and you can add lots of little funny meta-meaning by reversing meaning in two halves of two successive stanzas, stuff like that. A poem is just a text that does more than transfer information at the first level, but does it on many more. English, Russian or French, they can all do it.