4 ms·

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 d

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.

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.