6 ms·

I'm not native English speaker, but I wish people would just accept that English is Latin of computers. I still have to come to servers installed in German or

I'm not native English speaker, but I wish people would just accept that English is Latin of computers. I still have to come to servers installed in German or French and guess by memory where stuff are.

timonoko 11y ago
It is really horrible when local civil servants start to invent translations for English words, which did not mean anything computer-related to begin with. Like Spool and Cache and Cookie. Why cant browser's Cookie be just Cookie, it is easy to vocalize in any languiage. Why they want to translate Cookie into local bakery term? It does not raise level of comprehension any.
- blowski 11y ago
  Partly because 'cookie' requires the latin alphabet, and the ability to pronounce those sounds (it's not as easy as you think). If you're trying to avoid dilution of your language, you may want to come up with your own localised words.
  - j-pb 11y ago
    > dilution of your language Let me guess, you're french?
    - blowski 11y ago
      Nope, British. But I'm interested in linguistics, and how English affects other languages and the communities that speak those languages.
      - j-pb 11y ago
        I don't see how this is a bad thing though. The more cultural and linguistic bonds there are between nations, the happier everybody gets. More empathy, less war, easier trade, more friends and more options for living and working wherever you like.
        blowski 11y ago
        Personally, I think there are advantages and disadvantages. The big disadvantage is that small communities which have high social cohesion get squashed by the larger community, which leads to resentment and bitterness. In the UK, we see this with Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Scouse, Geordie, the Black Country, etc. They have all been squashed by 'Estuary English' (although some are making a resurgence). Online communities (including StackOverflow and Hacker News) do much the same thing by putting rules in place about how people talk with each other. When people break those rules, we get upset, because we see those breaking the rules as 'outsiders' and a threat to the community. I believe that language can have much the same effect. When English comes in, it often results in people forgetting local mythology, songs, rituals, etc, as a result of forces like Hollywood and Simon Cowell. The community withers and is replaced by the great 'meh'.
patrickg 11y ago
Teaching programming to my 8 year old is a burden, because everything is in English. Teaching two things at a time is more difficult than it has to be.
- j-pb 11y ago
  Kids learn languages a lot better when they have a use case, so I'd argue that teaching them english at the same time as teaching them programming, is actually beneficial. And let's face it, the vocabulary of programming languages is tiny.
  - patrickg 11y ago
    While I agree to the use case / tiny arguments, it doesn't seem to work in practice. I am now using Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/ https://scratch.mit.edu/) to teach programming. Much better.
    - j-pb 11y ago
      Scratch has the advantage of making the limitations of the computer tangible. The block nature will show you what can be done and what can't. For example, newbies in procedural languages often try things like if(something){loop = while} else {loop=if} loop{print("hi")} and it's not immediately obvious why that isn't valid in text, while in scratch it is. I don't think its the language though that makes things easier.
      - lmm 11y ago
        > if(something){loop = while} else {loop=if} loop{print("hi")} The only reason that wouldn't work is bad language design. In e.g. Smalltalk or TCL it's fine.
        j-pb 11y ago
        Thats not relevant to the point. And even smalltalk wouldn't allow this, without reflection, since method handles aren't really first class objects.
Dewie3 11y ago
If you were curious about learning the guitar, would you first purchase the best 10,000$ guitar you could find at your local shop? No; you'd find some cheap guitar to play on initially to see if you could actually make a habit out of practising the guitar. Now if it turned out that you didn't like it, you have minimized your financial losses. Similarly, some people don't know English. Maybe they're curious about programming. Should they have to learn a whole new language first? Or be distracted by the fact that the foreign programming language they have to write is also written in a foreign natural language? I'm not sure I even agree with your premise. It's a bit premature to worry about having to interact with code written by people that are just learning programming, isn't it? Like anything, when you empower people to learn things like this you have to trust them to have the decency to write programs in English in settings where there might be other people who don't speak their language that have to deal with their programs. Or trust that they wouldn't be hired for such jobs in the first place. > I'm not native English speaker, And? Does that give your argument more weight?
- j-pb 11y ago
  > And? Does that give your argument more weight? Yes because he is potentially one from the target audience of this. If somebody isn't willing to put in the tiny bit of effort to learn the tiny bit of english required for programming, they're not willing to put in the huge amount of effort that is required to learn programming anyways. We have enough horribly documented code that needs maintenance, there is no need to add horrible documentation in hundreds of languages.
  - Dewie3 11y ago
    > Yes because he is potentially one from the target audience of this. No, because he already knows English. The proclamation "We should tax the rich less" is a self-serving sentence whether it comes from someone who was born into wealth, or it comes from someone who became rich later in life. > If somebody isn't willing to put in the tiny bit of effort to learn the tiny bit of english required for programming, they're not willing to put in the huge amount of effort that is required to learn programming anyways. I think you're coming from the viewpoint of "what would I do to learn programming if I had started from scratch today". But like I've argued, this is not a good view of the process of learning to program! It's more like you are vaguely interested in some discipline or skill, or might need it for something, and so you want to dip your toes in it. You have no idea whether you will like it or not, or how far you will take it. To put up all these demands -- what they should learn and focus in order to in time become your ideal programming colleague -- is just too much to demand of someone who is just exploring a new world to them and don't know where it will take them, if anywhere. How about they learn to actually put things like for-loops, if-statements and such together, before you demand that they should embody all the skills to write great documentation, use best practices, and whatever else? Just think of all the different things that are "bad practices" that even experienced developers can manage to do with a clear conscience. You can't pick one aspect and demand that a green programmer should have the personality and disposition to know beforehand that such things are "bad practices". People can learn and change. But why even bother. These topics just devolve into downvote/upvote battles.
darklajid 11y ago
I agree. Localization is nice for end users, but I really don't get localized servers, localized .Net errors etc.. People argue that newcomers need to learn 'two things at a time', English and programming. I think that's absurd. No programming language (cue the COBOL people complaining?) is remotely similar to English, the language. Keywords are limited and it's a very foreign way to talk to a machine. Not a language in which you're going to ask where the next loo is. You might recognize some of the things you had to type to make your name show up in an endless stream on the screen as words when you learn English as a foreign language. Fun moment. But until then, this is really just painting buttons in green instead of red. I think the idea of that project is neat, interesting. But I don't believe that this is a good way to do things and I cannot imagine that I'd use something similar when my kids are old enough to start exploring this field.

timonoko 11y ago

It is really horrible when local civil servants start to invent translations for English words, which did not mean anything computer-related to begin with. Like Spool and Cache and Cookie. Why cant browser's Cookie be just Cookie, it is easy to vocalize in any languiage. Why they want to translate Cookie into local bakery term? It does not raise level of comprehension any.

blowski 11y ago
Partly because 'cookie' requires the latin alphabet, and the ability to pronounce those sounds (it's not as easy as you think). If you're trying to avoid dilution of your language, you may want to come up with your own localised words.
- j-pb 11y ago
  > dilution of your language Let me guess, you're french?
  - blowski 11y ago
    Nope, British. But I'm interested in linguistics, and how English affects other languages and the communities that speak those languages.
    - j-pb 11y ago
      I don't see how this is a bad thing though. The more cultural and linguistic bonds there are between nations, the happier everybody gets. More empathy, less war, easier trade, more friends and more options for living and working wherever you like.
      - blowski 11y ago
        Personally, I think there are advantages and disadvantages. The big disadvantage is that small communities which have high social cohesion get squashed by the larger community, which leads to resentment and bitterness. In the UK, we see this with Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Scouse, Geordie, the Black Country, etc. They have all been squashed by 'Estuary English' (although some are making a resurgence). Online communities (including StackOverflow and Hacker News) do much the same thing by putting rules in place about how people talk with each other. When people break those rules, we get upset, because we see those breaking the rules as 'outsiders' and a threat to the community. I believe that language can have much the same effect. When English comes in, it often results in people forgetting local mythology, songs, rituals, etc, as a result of forces like Hollywood and Simon Cowell. The community withers and is replaced by the great 'meh'.

patrickg 11y ago

Teaching programming to my 8 year old is a burden, because everything is in English. Teaching two things at a time is more difficult than it has to be.

j-pb 11y ago
Kids learn languages a lot better when they have a use case, so I'd argue that teaching them english at the same time as teaching them programming, is actually beneficial. And let's face it, the vocabulary of programming languages is tiny.
- patrickg 11y ago
  While I agree to the use case / tiny arguments, it doesn't seem to work in practice. I am now using Scratch (https://scratch.mit.edu/ https://scratch.mit.edu/) to teach programming. Much better.
  - j-pb 11y ago
    Scratch has the advantage of making the limitations of the computer tangible. The block nature will show you what can be done and what can't. For example, newbies in procedural languages often try things like if(something){loop = while} else {loop=if} loop{print("hi")} and it's not immediately obvious why that isn't valid in text, while in scratch it is. I don't think its the language though that makes things easier.
    - lmm 11y ago
      > if(something){loop = while} else {loop=if} loop{print("hi")} The only reason that wouldn't work is bad language design. In e.g. Smalltalk or TCL it's fine.
      - j-pb 11y ago
        Thats not relevant to the point. And even smalltalk wouldn't allow this, without reflection, since method handles aren't really first class objects.

Dewie3 11y ago

If you were curious about learning the guitar, would you first purchase the best 10,000$ guitar you could find at your local shop? No; you'd find some cheap guitar to play on initially to see if you could actually make a habit out of practising the guitar. Now if it turned out that you didn't like it, you have minimized your financial losses. Similarly, some people don't know English. Maybe they're curious about programming. Should they have to learn a whole new language first? Or be distracted by the fact that the foreign programming language they have to write is also written in a foreign natural language? I'm not sure I even agree with your premise. It's a bit premature to worry about having to interact with code written by people that are just learning programming, isn't it? Like anything, when you empower people to learn things like this you have to trust them to have the decency to write programs in English in settings where there might be other people who don't speak their language that have to deal with their programs. Or trust that they wouldn't be hired for such jobs in the first place. > I'm not native English speaker, And? Does that give your argument more weight?

j-pb 11y ago
> And? Does that give your argument more weight? Yes because he is potentially one from the target audience of this. If somebody isn't willing to put in the tiny bit of effort to learn the tiny bit of english required for programming, they're not willing to put in the huge amount of effort that is required to learn programming anyways. We have enough horribly documented code that needs maintenance, there is no need to add horrible documentation in hundreds of languages.
- Dewie3 11y ago
  > Yes because he is potentially one from the target audience of this. No, because he already knows English. The proclamation "We should tax the rich less" is a self-serving sentence whether it comes from someone who was born into wealth, or it comes from someone who became rich later in life. > If somebody isn't willing to put in the tiny bit of effort to learn the tiny bit of english required for programming, they're not willing to put in the huge amount of effort that is required to learn programming anyways. I think you're coming from the viewpoint of "what would I do to learn programming if I had started from scratch today". But like I've argued, this is not a good view of the process of learning to program! It's more like you are vaguely interested in some discipline or skill, or might need it for something, and so you want to dip your toes in it. You have no idea whether you will like it or not, or how far you will take it. To put up all these demands -- what they should learn and focus in order to in time become your ideal programming colleague -- is just too much to demand of someone who is just exploring a new world to them and don't know where it will take them, if anywhere. How about they learn to actually put things like for-loops, if-statements and such together, before you demand that they should embody all the skills to write great documentation, use best practices, and whatever else? Just think of all the different things that are "bad practices" that even experienced developers can manage to do with a clear conscience. You can't pick one aspect and demand that a green programmer should have the personality and disposition to know beforehand that such things are "bad practices". People can learn and change. But why even bother. These topics just devolve into downvote/upvote battles.

darklajid 11y ago

I agree. Localization is nice for end users, but I really don't get localized servers, localized .Net errors etc.. People argue that newcomers need to learn 'two things at a time', English and programming. I think that's absurd. No programming language (cue the COBOL people complaining?) is remotely similar to English, the language. Keywords are limited and it's a very foreign way to talk to a machine. Not a language in which you're going to ask where the next loo is. You might recognize some of the things you had to type to make your name show up in an endless stream on the screen as words when you learn English as a foreign language. Fun moment. But until then, this is really just painting buttons in green instead of red. I think the idea of that project is neat, interesting. But I don't believe that this is a good way to do things and I cannot imagine that I'd use something similar when my kids are old enough to start exploring this field.