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"Ruby came from Japan. Lua came from Brazil. Python came from the Netherlands." And all of them use English terms for language identifiers. English is the lin

"Ruby came from Japan. Lua came from Brazil. Python came from the Netherlands." And all of them use English terms for language identifiers. English is the lingua franca of IT & software development. As a Brazilian I can tell you that programmers that don't learn at least how to read technical English won't become good practicioners. And GitHub is a social platform for collaborating on projects. In the vast majority of projects, English is the common language spoken by all participants. Learn English and get over it. (I didn't read further into the article. I hope the other suggestions make more sense.)

wildchild 14y ago
Agree, but this is business. They need more customers.
FiloSottile 14y ago
Totally. I am Italian, and seriously, most of the blog posts, tutorials and such written in my native language are so bad that only bad programmers can grow out of them. Also, an open source project maintained in, say, Spanish is one I and others can't easily contribute to. That would be a disaster.
- to3m 14y ago
  Projects would have to pick a language that makes sense, given their goals. Perhaps some would be keener on optimising mainly for the existing set of contributors?
  - FiloSottile 14y ago
    I'm not sure about this, it would restrict the future changes, limiting innovations and putting the project at risk of dying when the developers leave, IMHO.
Svip 14y ago
I disagree. My position is not that English is bad (English has some advantages here and there, but it is hardly the best language I know), it is very practical - and necessary - to learn if you want to work in IT. No doubt about it. However, confining ourselves to one language makes us all think the same way. Research has proven time and time again, that learning other languages will help us apply different ways to think about problems, because different languages uses different grammar to convey the same meaning. Effectively, if we continue to strive to eradicate localised IT and software related words from non-English languages and replace them with English words instead, language development will stagnate and all languages will eventually become English. And that is not a positive prospect. I don't need Github localised, but I would like to localise it for the purpose of creating technical terms in my own language. I fear that most of the localisation into Danish would simply be English words instead, despite the fact that Danish actually has words for 'push' and 'pull' (»puf« and »hal«, respectively). And English shouldn't be so cocky either, by its current usage, English is slowly becoming less than a language and more of a tool. And with both foreign and native speakers' continue abuse of the language, English will soon be derived of all its beauty, for the purpose of minimising communication. Are we really that lazy?
- eberfreitas 14y ago
  > However, confining ourselves to one language makes us all think the same way I have prior knowledge in the area so pardon me if what I'm saying is nonsene, but learning a programming language doesn't have the same benefits of learning any other language in this case? I mean, if you are used to something like C, learning Haskell or Lisp or Brainfuck is a big mind shift.
  - Svip 14y ago
    I was actually thinking of spoken languages, and attempts to solve the same issues in one particular programming language. Or in the larger scope of designing a system (where choice of programming language is less relevant). I often find that choice of programming languages confines people to restrict themselves to certain ways in each language. Which obviously makes sense, as each programming languages were created with a need in mind that was sufficiently being fulfilled in other languages. There are things you'd write in C, but not in Haskell. Like say, a driver. It's different with spoken languages, they all try to solve the same issue; communicating. But do so differently.
lifeisstillgood 14y ago
I wanted to disagree - so I went looking for the source of the original Python (http://www.python.org/download/releases/early/ http://www.python.org/download/releases/early/) And guess what, a couple of grammatical mistakes but otherwise its all in English. Now this may of course be a Dutch thing. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it is one more indication of a trend towards a very few international languages (English, Spanish, Mandarin perhaps) that the "internationally connected elite" can speak and the rest have to learn. Kind of bothers me but I cannot tell you why.
- mattmanser 14y ago
  It is a Dutch thing, they've been learning it from 7 years old or something for decades and a lot of the movies and shows were always subtitled, not overdubbed. The Dutch were far ahead of everyone learning English on the continent, even before English was considered the modern lingua-franca, which personally I think really gathered steam with the adoption of the internet in the mid-90s. I can remember the French desperately trying to cling on to the delusion that French was still relevant. I'm half-dutch and can only vaguely follow conversations in it, even 20 years ago when I'd go over as a kid everyone spoke it near fluently. One of my professors at Uni complained that he'd tried to learn Dutch but found it nearly impossible because when he visited there as soon as they found out you were English they'd just speak to you in English. My friend worked in banking over there for 2 years in Amsterdam, never learnt anything but basic hello/thanks/goodbye.
  - ScotterC 14y ago
    Dank u wel :) All I learned. Wait, also how to order a pancake which I remember as something like ick vil crack un pannecooke. I was very impressed with the Dutch english when I've been over there. They approach it as a practicality and they also get fairly insulted if you ask them if they speak english.
- 6ren 14y ago
  It's unfair to those speaking a different language. There's also the extinction of other languages (and all the work that went into them, and all the works that used them, literature and associated culture). It's like the extinction of species in the rainforest, except for memes (in the original Dawkin sense). The reason is the network effect, in that the more people who use a communications system, the more valuable it is (given that communication is valuable). Language is a communications system. This forms a natural monopoly: because of the value of larger networks, it is inevitable that one language will dominate - unless there are other barriers partitioning the network, akin to the lack of a telecommunications physical layer in centuries past.
new299 14y ago
oh come on, it's not such a bad suggestion. There are many programmers with a poor command of English good ones and bad ones. I see no reason to say "suck it up, learn English" to them. And yes, github might be wise to address that market. It's worth noting that international support is also useful for people wanting to add issues, not just coders. And that revision control systems can be used for more than just code.
judofyr 14y ago
Although Ruby uses English terms, a lot of the development happens in Japanese.
- moe 14y ago
  Which is a significant barrier of entry for western developers and may actually be part of the reason why MRI is not nearly as good as it could be (less eyes looking at it). I've experienced this myself twice so far, with Ruby and with TokyoCabinet (earlier HyperEstraier). Upon investigation of lower-level problems I would eventually hit a brick-wall in the disguise of a japanese mailing list. This seems to be improving for Ruby nowadays, but I did actually stop using HyperEstraier (years ago, before the rise of SOLR) for this reason. One counter-example could be nginx where lots of discussion still happens in russian, yet the code-quality remains excellent. This is more of an outlier than a role-model, though. Most projects are not blessed with a lead-developer as talented as Igor.
steferson 14y ago
As another Brazilian, I agree 100% with you, I never, ever install anything in portuguese, or read any blog post in portuguese. I always go for english, the ones who do try to avoid it are usually mediocre developers.
- facorreia 14y ago
  You know what I'm talking about. The people that don't bother learning English and depend on auto translators are the same that don't bother studying anything, solve problems by trial and error, and develop by copy-and-paste and cargo-cult. Sigh...
reiz 14y ago
I am a German guy, and I agree! Everybody in IT should know enough english to use GitHub.
Trufa 14y ago
Quite relevant: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/the-ugly-american-programmer.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/the-ugly-american-p...
- facorreia 14y ago
  Great article. Quote: "I know many developers in Poland who prefer (as Joel mentioned) to get English documentation rather than Polish translation and the reason for that is that translations were not always accurate." That made me remember how before the Web sometimes I could not get an original book but would be able to buy a translated one. Many times the translations made no sense at all and I had to mentally translate it back to English to understand what the original author meant.

wildchild 14y ago

Agree, but this is business. They need more customers.

FiloSottile 14y ago

Totally. I am Italian, and seriously, most of the blog posts, tutorials and such written in my native language are so bad that only bad programmers can grow out of them. Also, an open source project maintained in, say, Spanish is one I and others can't easily contribute to. That would be a disaster.

to3m 14y ago
Projects would have to pick a language that makes sense, given their goals. Perhaps some would be keener on optimising mainly for the existing set of contributors?
- FiloSottile 14y ago
  I'm not sure about this, it would restrict the future changes, limiting innovations and putting the project at risk of dying when the developers leave, IMHO.

Svip 14y ago

I disagree. My position is not that English is bad (English has some advantages here and there, but it is hardly the best language I know), it is very practical - and necessary - to learn if you want to work in IT. No doubt about it. However, confining ourselves to one language makes us all think the same way. Research has proven time and time again, that learning other languages will help us apply different ways to think about problems, because different languages uses different grammar to convey the same meaning. Effectively, if we continue to strive to eradicate localised IT and software related words from non-English languages and replace them with English words instead, language development will stagnate and all languages will eventually become English. And that is not a positive prospect. I don't need Github localised, but I would like to localise it for the purpose of creating technical terms in my own language. I fear that most of the localisation into Danish would simply be English words instead, despite the fact that Danish actually has words for 'push' and 'pull' (»puf« and »hal«, respectively). And English shouldn't be so cocky either, by its current usage, English is slowly becoming less than a language and more of a tool. And with both foreign and native speakers' continue abuse of the language, English will soon be derived of all its beauty, for the purpose of minimising communication. Are we really that lazy?

eberfreitas 14y ago
> However, confining ourselves to one language makes us all think the same way I have prior knowledge in the area so pardon me if what I'm saying is nonsene, but learning a programming language doesn't have the same benefits of learning any other language in this case? I mean, if you are used to something like C, learning Haskell or Lisp or Brainfuck is a big mind shift.
- Svip 14y ago
  I was actually thinking of spoken languages, and attempts to solve the same issues in one particular programming language. Or in the larger scope of designing a system (where choice of programming language is less relevant). I often find that choice of programming languages confines people to restrict themselves to certain ways in each language. Which obviously makes sense, as each programming languages were created with a need in mind that was sufficiently being fulfilled in other languages. There are things you'd write in C, but not in Haskell. Like say, a driver. It's different with spoken languages, they all try to solve the same issue; communicating. But do so differently.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago

I wanted to disagree - so I went looking for the source of the original Python (http://www.python.org/download/releases/early/ http://www.python.org/download/releases/early/) And guess what, a couple of grammatical mistakes but otherwise its all in English. Now this may of course be a Dutch thing. But I have a sneaking suspicion that it is one more indication of a trend towards a very few international languages (English, Spanish, Mandarin perhaps) that the "internationally connected elite" can speak and the rest have to learn. Kind of bothers me but I cannot tell you why.

mattmanser 14y ago
It is a Dutch thing, they've been learning it from 7 years old or something for decades and a lot of the movies and shows were always subtitled, not overdubbed. The Dutch were far ahead of everyone learning English on the continent, even before English was considered the modern lingua-franca, which personally I think really gathered steam with the adoption of the internet in the mid-90s. I can remember the French desperately trying to cling on to the delusion that French was still relevant. I'm half-dutch and can only vaguely follow conversations in it, even 20 years ago when I'd go over as a kid everyone spoke it near fluently. One of my professors at Uni complained that he'd tried to learn Dutch but found it nearly impossible because when he visited there as soon as they found out you were English they'd just speak to you in English. My friend worked in banking over there for 2 years in Amsterdam, never learnt anything but basic hello/thanks/goodbye.
- ScotterC 14y ago
  Dank u wel :) All I learned. Wait, also how to order a pancake which I remember as something like ick vil crack un pannecooke. I was very impressed with the Dutch english when I've been over there. They approach it as a practicality and they also get fairly insulted if you ask them if they speak english.
6ren 14y ago
It's unfair to those speaking a different language. There's also the extinction of other languages (and all the work that went into them, and all the works that used them, literature and associated culture). It's like the extinction of species in the rainforest, except for memes (in the original Dawkin sense). The reason is the network effect, in that the more people who use a communications system, the more valuable it is (given that communication is valuable). Language is a communications system. This forms a natural monopoly: because of the value of larger networks, it is inevitable that one language will dominate - unless there are other barriers partitioning the network, akin to the lack of a telecommunications physical layer in centuries past.

new299 14y ago

oh come on, it's not such a bad suggestion. There are many programmers with a poor command of English good ones and bad ones. I see no reason to say "suck it up, learn English" to them. And yes, github might be wise to address that market. It's worth noting that international support is also useful for people wanting to add issues, not just coders. And that revision control systems can be used for more than just code.

judofyr 14y ago

Although Ruby uses English terms, a lot of the development happens in Japanese.

moe 14y ago
Which is a significant barrier of entry for western developers and may actually be part of the reason why MRI is not nearly as good as it could be (less eyes looking at it). I've experienced this myself twice so far, with Ruby and with TokyoCabinet (earlier HyperEstraier). Upon investigation of lower-level problems I would eventually hit a brick-wall in the disguise of a japanese mailing list. This seems to be improving for Ruby nowadays, but I did actually stop using HyperEstraier (years ago, before the rise of SOLR) for this reason. One counter-example could be nginx where lots of discussion still happens in russian, yet the code-quality remains excellent. This is more of an outlier than a role-model, though. Most projects are not blessed with a lead-developer as talented as Igor.

steferson 14y ago

As another Brazilian, I agree 100% with you, I never, ever install anything in portuguese, or read any blog post in portuguese. I always go for english, the ones who do try to avoid it are usually mediocre developers.

facorreia 14y ago
You know what I'm talking about. The people that don't bother learning English and depend on auto translators are the same that don't bother studying anything, solve problems by trial and error, and develop by copy-and-paste and cargo-cult. Sigh...

reiz 14y ago

I am a German guy, and I agree! Everybody in IT should know enough english to use GitHub.

Trufa 14y ago

Quite relevant: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/the-ugly-american-programmer.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/03/the-ugly-american-p...

facorreia 14y ago
Great article. Quote: "I know many developers in Poland who prefer (as Joel mentioned) to get English documentation rather than Polish translation and the reason for that is that translations were not always accurate." That made me remember how before the Web sometimes I could not get an original book but would be able to buy a translated one. Many times the translations made no sense at all and I had to mentally translate it back to English to understand what the original author meant.