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I have strongly mixed feelings on this. When I was a kid my family moved to Brazil for a couple of years and I learned Portuguese. When I was about 20 I moved

I have strongly mixed feelings on this. When I was a kid my family moved to Brazil for a couple of years and I learned Portuguese. When I was about 20 I moved to Chile and learned Spanish. Speaking the language of the culture you are in is hugely important - and not very easy. So on the one hand if the culture of programming is in English (is it?) then I would strongly encourage anyone wanting to program to learn English. On the other hand, helping inject a programming environment into another language seems a worthy goal as well. On balance it seems like stackoverflow is doing the right thing.

jaimebuelta 13y ago
I have similar mixed feelings (Spanish is my native language, but I work on an English environment)
astrodust 13y ago
While learning English will help immeasurably when you're learning to program, the languages themselves are often highly English-baed, trying to tackle programming and English at the same time makes for quite a barrier. Since being able to ask difficult, technical questions in your native language would make it easier to learn, I don't see what's so bad about that. Yes, it fragments the community, but it also recognizes that the world is not English only. Right now there's large Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and French communities that are second-class citizens without a tool like Stack Overflow.
- vvvv 13y ago
  > Trying to tackle programming and English at the same time makes for quite a barrier. That's how I played all games as a kid :) Civilisation + dictionary FTW
  - astrodust 13y ago
    More than one of my non-native English co-workers has said the first English phrase they understood was: GAME OVER
    - jhdevos 13y ago
      Mine was 'REDO FROM START' :-)
- ufo 13y ago
  I would say that reading documentation is a bigger problem then having to memorize a dozen or so keywords.
- hrktb 13y ago
  It depends on the person of course, but trying to learn english while learning programming can create a kind of virtuous circle of learning (learning programming helps getting familiar with english words which helps reading docs which helps programming etc). It's more difficult to try to learn one ignoring the other IMO. I had collegues that didn't care much for english, but it was surprising how good they were at parsing other people's code and understand how libraries and APIs worked with very few hints.
- azernik 13y ago
  The connection between programming languages and English is highly exaggerated. Programming language syntax is generally nothing like natural language syntax, and programming language vocabulary (keywords, data structures, standard library names) is usually completely divorced from similar-sounding or similar-spelled words in English.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    The biggest problem I've seen is that a lot of the words have subtle meaning and the jargon used to describe the theory is often difficult or impossible to translate. For example, a "stack" or a "filter" or a "queue" all have specific meanings outside of programming, their nature hints at how they work, even if the technical meaning is obviously different. Not knowing what any of the things were leaves you with a hazy concept of what they are until you understand their English analog. I still think it makes sense to try and explain concepts in the language in which one is most proficient, then worry about English later.
jhdevos 13y ago
The answer to your '(is it?)' is 'No!', english is just the language of the programming culture that we are part of. And that is the whole point of this article; there already is a lot of programming culture that we simply don't know about because those people don't hang out on HN. They deserve a StackOverflow, too :)
klzns 13y ago
I agree with you, but living in a another country makes it so much easier to learn a language rather than just studying by yourself. That's why cultural exchange programs are so common here in Brazil.
sebastialonso 13y ago
Second you on the mixed feelings. I'm from Chile, but since I was a kid I've been learning English mostly thanks to the telly and then, from the Internet. School English is made to understand, not to speak. In most of Latin America, English lessons are not something important for most people, because the actual chance to go abroad for work and actually speak the language is non existent. And that has to do with the nature of the jobs here. Having said that, I've notice that at least in Chile, and particularly in the startup/software development sector, this is changing at very quick steps, I'd presume it's the same in the rest of Latin America. So, it's only natural that we have one language for programming, and don't think is a bad thing, quite the opposite. As a social measure, SO is hitting the jackpot, giving spaces for those who didn't have any. I, personally, would focus more in teaching real life English, i.e. speaking the damn thing in the first place, focus on real life situations, and what not. SO should think this measure is only a patch, in some form. Is not, and it shouldn't be think of as a solution.

jaimebuelta 13y ago

I have similar mixed feelings (Spanish is my native language, but I work on an English environment)

astrodust 13y ago

While learning English will help immeasurably when you're learning to program, the languages themselves are often highly English-baed, trying to tackle programming and English at the same time makes for quite a barrier. Since being able to ask difficult, technical questions in your native language would make it easier to learn, I don't see what's so bad about that. Yes, it fragments the community, but it also recognizes that the world is not English only. Right now there's large Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and French communities that are second-class citizens without a tool like Stack Overflow.

vvvv 13y ago
> Trying to tackle programming and English at the same time makes for quite a barrier. That's how I played all games as a kid :) Civilisation + dictionary FTW
- astrodust 13y ago
  More than one of my non-native English co-workers has said the first English phrase they understood was: GAME OVER
  - jhdevos 13y ago
    Mine was 'REDO FROM START' :-)
ufo 13y ago
I would say that reading documentation is a bigger problem then having to memorize a dozen or so keywords.
hrktb 13y ago
It depends on the person of course, but trying to learn english while learning programming can create a kind of virtuous circle of learning (learning programming helps getting familiar with english words which helps reading docs which helps programming etc). It's more difficult to try to learn one ignoring the other IMO. I had collegues that didn't care much for english, but it was surprising how good they were at parsing other people's code and understand how libraries and APIs worked with very few hints.
azernik 13y ago
The connection between programming languages and English is highly exaggerated. Programming language syntax is generally nothing like natural language syntax, and programming language vocabulary (keywords, data structures, standard library names) is usually completely divorced from similar-sounding or similar-spelled words in English.
- astrodust 13y ago
  The biggest problem I've seen is that a lot of the words have subtle meaning and the jargon used to describe the theory is often difficult or impossible to translate. For example, a "stack" or a "filter" or a "queue" all have specific meanings outside of programming, their nature hints at how they work, even if the technical meaning is obviously different. Not knowing what any of the things were leaves you with a hazy concept of what they are until you understand their English analog. I still think it makes sense to try and explain concepts in the language in which one is most proficient, then worry about English later.

jhdevos 13y ago

The answer to your '(is it?)' is 'No!', english is just the language of the programming culture that we are part of. And that is the whole point of this article; there already is a lot of programming culture that we simply don't know about because those people don't hang out on HN. They deserve a StackOverflow, too :)

klzns 13y ago

I agree with you, but living in a another country makes it so much easier to learn a language rather than just studying by yourself. That's why cultural exchange programs are so common here in Brazil.

sebastialonso 13y ago

Second you on the mixed feelings. I'm from Chile, but since I was a kid I've been learning English mostly thanks to the telly and then, from the Internet. School English is made to understand, not to speak. In most of Latin America, English lessons are not something important for most people, because the actual chance to go abroad for work and actually speak the language is non existent. And that has to do with the nature of the jobs here. Having said that, I've notice that at least in Chile, and particularly in the startup/software development sector, this is changing at very quick steps, I'd presume it's the same in the rest of Latin America. So, it's only natural that we have one language for programming, and don't think is a bad thing, quite the opposite. As a social measure, SO is hitting the jackpot, giving spaces for those who didn't have any. I, personally, would focus more in teaching real life English, i.e. speaking the damn thing in the first place, focus on real life situations, and what not. SO should think this measure is only a patch, in some form. Is not, and it shouldn't be think of as a solution.