Firstly, the problems he raises would be hard even if the native speakers of a given language were the first to develop computers. In fact I read a fascinating

Firstly, the problems he raises would be hard even if the native speakers of a given language were the first to develop computers. In fact I read a fascinating argument (from a link on HN?.. I forget) about Japanese computers developing into "appliances" (a gaming machine and a separate more expensive word processing machine for professionals) because early computers were too under-powered to support the Japanese character set. And that it was because lacking these problems that Americans developed "general" computing first, with the Japanese stuck in the "appliance" mindset until the late nineties. Secondly, I'm not a native English speaker and I always had this sentiment; "why isn't all computing in English", "why do we have i18n", etc. For one, I don't think everyone studying a standard foreign language is bad, and while English is probably not the best option (Spanish is reportedly easier), it's there, it's as close or closer to being lingua franca as any other, and it's certainly easier than the language with the largest number of native speakers (Chinese). And then even someone with bad English might benefit from at least having File and Edit menus instead of often crazy translations of these things. A little bit of English and a little bit of standardization can't hurt. Of course ultimately computers ought to display text in all those languages - if not in menus, etc. then certainly in the content itself - so this sentiment of mine isn't very helpful at all. But I wasn't offended by the article in the slightest.