4 ms·

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 gui

by 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.
  - j-pb 11y ago
    > No, because he already knows English. And he didn't have to learn it at some point? My english was pretty much nonexistent until I picked up programming. Like I said below, nobody is arguing against beginner languages/tools like scratch and logo that could essentially be programmed in emoji, for what it's worth. But people are arguing against "real" programming languages being translated, because that's a waste of everyones time.
gear54rus 11y ago
> Should they have to learn a whole new language first? No. That's the difference between this and the guitar: you can't buy a few bits of guitar. But you can learn words like 'print', 'var' or 'for'. I'd steer this more into the land of 'manhours spent localizing are manhours wasted' rahter than > to worry about having to interact with code written by people that are just learning programming
lmm 11y ago
A non-English programming language is more like buying a Keytar so you can get the feel of playing guitar without having to learn something different from the piano. It's not terribly useful, and if you decide you actually want to pick up the guitar you'll just have to forget everything you've learnt and learn it all again.
- Dewie3 11y ago
  Logic, imperative programming etc. is not tied to any natural language. You wouldn't have to relearn the same concepts at all.
  - j-pb 11y ago
    Then why choose a "real programming language" anyways? Go with something like scratch, or something that uses symbols to program tiny machines, like half a dozen iOS games. "Real" programming languages aren't suited for beginners because error messages are usually to cryptic and should contain hints how to solve the problem.
czechdeveloper 11y ago
> And? Does that give your argument more weight? I'm likely to have to live with results of this. I already do to some extent.

by Dewie3 11y ago

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.
- j-pb 11y ago
  > No, because he already knows English. And he didn't have to learn it at some point? My english was pretty much nonexistent until I picked up programming. Like I said below, nobody is arguing against beginner languages/tools like scratch and logo that could essentially be programmed in emoji, for what it's worth. But people are arguing against "real" programming languages being translated, because that's a waste of everyones time.

gear54rus 11y ago

> Should they have to learn a whole new language first? No. That's the difference between this and the guitar: you can't buy a few bits of guitar. But you can learn words like 'print', 'var' or 'for'. I'd steer this more into the land of 'manhours spent localizing are manhours wasted' rahter than > to worry about having to interact with code written by people that are just learning programming

lmm 11y ago

A non-English programming language is more like buying a Keytar so you can get the feel of playing guitar without having to learn something different from the piano. It's not terribly useful, and if you decide you actually want to pick up the guitar you'll just have to forget everything you've learnt and learn it all again.

Dewie3 11y ago
Logic, imperative programming etc. is not tied to any natural language. You wouldn't have to relearn the same concepts at all.
- j-pb 11y ago
  Then why choose a "real programming language" anyways? Go with something like scratch, or something that uses symbols to program tiny machines, like half a dozen iOS games. "Real" programming languages aren't suited for beginners because error messages are usually to cryptic and should contain hints how to solve the problem.

czechdeveloper 11y ago

> And? Does that give your argument more weight? I'm likely to have to live with results of this. I already do to some extent.