4 ms·

I still don't understand who at Microsoft decided that it was a good idea to have "localized programming". If you use a non-English version of Excel you cannot

by kriro 3y ago

I still don't understand who at Microsoft decided that it was a good idea to have "localized programming". If you use a non-English version of Excel you cannot use "if" but rather have to use whatever the word for if is in that language (for example "wenn" in German). If you think you really need that localization why can't both versions work or why can't you force English (the CAD software Rhino does this with an underscore for example). Yeah sure you can change language but it's such a kludge. Causes so much confusion in international settings, makes searching for stuff non-trivial etc. etc. I'm really grateful I never had to work with Excel in any job. My excel skills section of my CV reads "basic, would rather not use it". The closest I came was importing Excel files. I do however respect people who can use it well and I've seen people be really efficient in excel.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago
> If you use a non-English version of Excel you cannot use "if" but rather have to use whatever the word for if is in that language (for example "wenn" in German) bloody hell, they seriously do that?
- zyberzero 3y ago
  Yes. And the keyboard bindings are also localized, so in Excel in Swedish on would press CTRL-F to make the text bold (F is for "fetstil") and to find one would press CTRL-B, logically for "sök". (for unaware users, those are exchanged between Excel in English and in Swedish. In english CTRL-F for find, CTRL-B for bold. )
  - fho 3y ago
    Or (as I just had the pleasure to find out) CTRL-SHIFT-F on my new work machine : - \
- Lockal 3y ago
  Not just that, it also requires "native" decimal separator. For example, if you installed English Excel on system with Russian calendar/numbers/currency, the formula can look like: =COUNTIF(B2:B6;">1,5") (syntax error otherwise). English Excel in English environment: =COUNTIF(B2:B6;">1.5") Russian Excel in Russian environment: =СЧЁТЕСЛИ(B2:B6;">1,5") What will happen when you enter 1.5 into English Excel? Everyone knows it is 01.май. What happens if you enter 100.5? It is a string, Excel on this machine expects different separator.
  - xattt 3y ago
    If they were fully committed, they should have turned the quotes into double angle quotation marks.
  - berkes 3y ago
    And with Dutch (in Google Sheets), the argument separators differ too. =IF(B2,42,1337), in Dutch, =ALS(B2;42;1337) or, when using english formulas, still is =IF(B2;42;1337). Terrible when you copy formulas around.
- bjornasm 3y ago
  Yes. Every last word/command. Its extremely annoying.
fouronnes3 3y ago
This sentiment generalizes pretty well as a bilingual programmer, or even just a bilingual user of a lot of tech. - Silent localization of decimal separator in Libre Office calc. - Localization of error messages (much harder googling). I have known hundreds of french software engineers, absolutely no one cares for GCC errors in french. - Google search trying to be way to smart. Good luck trying to figure out how to get English results for a word that has the same spelling in french. - The entire keyboard layout software stack being a giant us-centric leaky abstraction at every layer. - And the absolute worst of all: automatic translation of YouTube video titles with neither possibility to opt-out or consent, for both viewer and author.
- xattt 3y ago
  I want to use Siri in English, French and Russian, but HomeKit only lets you set names of rooms and devices in a single language.
- folmar 3y ago
  > Good luck trying to figure out how to get English results for a word that has the same spelling in french. Quite easy just not discoverable but if you remember query parameters from 20 years ago it's easy, just remove _all_ query parameters except `q` (the query itself) from the URL and append parameter `hl=en`, then click `show only results in English`. Google was always very bad with often mixing translation and localisation.
berkes 3y ago
This problem gets worse with localized formats. In my locale, $13.377 is 13377 dollars and zero cents. And $13,377 is 13 dollars and 37(and something) cents. Obviously, CSV exports randomly chose my locale, their locale or something else. Same for date-formats. But at least date-format errors are visible and often obvious. Having a giant table of prices and a very few being off by a thousand, isn't. Add, indeed, the localized formulas and you end up with sheets that are completely unportable, unsharable. I'm certain that this is because Excel was designed in a pre-internet era. Where collaboration, if it existed at all, evolved around intranets, shared drives and company-managed computers.
- zamber 3y ago
  This is an issue with CSV numerical values stored as strings, for numbers it's a bit better. Libraries sometimes allow for a raw import that preserves the internal data type of the format, then you get proper numbers, not adjusted to locale formats. If you do it for excel it even handles dates pretty well because they're in a numerical format and you can infer that a column is filled with dates because of the range. The pre-internet conclusion is right. They try to keep backwards compatibility. Also, Excel doesn't handle big data well (1-2M rows) and neither do import libraries (at least in JS land).
naikrovek 3y ago
Knowing Microsoft, this is likely a backwards compatibility thing. There is no way this is easier to implement than just using the same keywords in any locale.
rodolphoarruda 3y ago
LibreOffice Calc settings allow you to use function names in English if you like.

by kriro 3y ago

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

> If you use a non-English version of Excel you cannot use "if" but rather have to use whatever the word for if is in that language (for example "wenn" in German) bloody hell, they seriously do that?

zyberzero 3y ago
Yes. And the keyboard bindings are also localized, so in Excel in Swedish on would press CTRL-F to make the text bold (F is for "fetstil") and to find one would press CTRL-B, logically for "sök". (for unaware users, those are exchanged between Excel in English and in Swedish. In english CTRL-F for find, CTRL-B for bold. )
- fho 3y ago
  Or (as I just had the pleasure to find out) CTRL-SHIFT-F on my new work machine : - \
Lockal 3y ago
Not just that, it also requires "native" decimal separator. For example, if you installed English Excel on system with Russian calendar/numbers/currency, the formula can look like: =COUNTIF(B2:B6;">1,5") (syntax error otherwise). English Excel in English environment: =COUNTIF(B2:B6;">1.5") Russian Excel in Russian environment: =СЧЁТЕСЛИ(B2:B6;">1,5") What will happen when you enter 1.5 into English Excel? Everyone knows it is 01.май. What happens if you enter 100.5? It is a string, Excel on this machine expects different separator.
- xattt 3y ago
  If they were fully committed, they should have turned the quotes into double angle quotation marks.
- berkes 3y ago
  And with Dutch (in Google Sheets), the argument separators differ too. =IF(B2,42,1337), in Dutch, =ALS(B2;42;1337) or, when using english formulas, still is =IF(B2;42;1337). Terrible when you copy formulas around.
bjornasm 3y ago
Yes. Every last word/command. Its extremely annoying.

fouronnes3 3y ago

This sentiment generalizes pretty well as a bilingual programmer, or even just a bilingual user of a lot of tech. - Silent localization of decimal separator in Libre Office calc. - Localization of error messages (much harder googling). I have known hundreds of french software engineers, absolutely no one cares for GCC errors in french. - Google search trying to be way to smart. Good luck trying to figure out how to get English results for a word that has the same spelling in french. - The entire keyboard layout software stack being a giant us-centric leaky abstraction at every layer. - And the absolute worst of all: automatic translation of YouTube video titles with neither possibility to opt-out or consent, for both viewer and author.

xattt 3y ago
I want to use Siri in English, French and Russian, but HomeKit only lets you set names of rooms and devices in a single language.
folmar 3y ago
> Good luck trying to figure out how to get English results for a word that has the same spelling in french. Quite easy just not discoverable but if you remember query parameters from 20 years ago it's easy, just remove _all_ query parameters except `q` (the query itself) from the URL and append parameter `hl=en`, then click `show only results in English`. Google was always very bad with often mixing translation and localisation.

berkes 3y ago

This problem gets worse with localized formats. In my locale, $13.377 is 13377 dollars and zero cents. And $13,377 is 13 dollars and 37(and something) cents. Obviously, CSV exports randomly chose my locale, their locale or something else. Same for date-formats. But at least date-format errors are visible and often obvious. Having a giant table of prices and a very few being off by a thousand, isn't. Add, indeed, the localized formulas and you end up with sheets that are completely unportable, unsharable. I'm certain that this is because Excel was designed in a pre-internet era. Where collaboration, if it existed at all, evolved around intranets, shared drives and company-managed computers.

zamber 3y ago
This is an issue with CSV numerical values stored as strings, for numbers it's a bit better. Libraries sometimes allow for a raw import that preserves the internal data type of the format, then you get proper numbers, not adjusted to locale formats. If you do it for excel it even handles dates pretty well because they're in a numerical format and you can infer that a column is filled with dates because of the range. The pre-internet conclusion is right. They try to keep backwards compatibility. Also, Excel doesn't handle big data well (1-2M rows) and neither do import libraries (at least in JS land).

naikrovek 3y ago

Knowing Microsoft, this is likely a backwards compatibility thing. There is no way this is easier to implement than just using the same keywords in any locale.

rodolphoarruda 3y ago

LibreOffice Calc settings allow you to use function names in English if you like.