[beginner] What's wrong?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Sun, 3 Apr 2016 03:12 am, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:

> Marko Rauhamaa wrote:
> 
>> Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info>:
>>> So you're saying that learning to be a fluent speaker of English is a
>>> pre-requisite of being a programmer?
>> 
>> No more than learning Latin is a prerequisite of being a doctor.
> 
> Full ACK.  Probably starting with the Industrial Revolution enabled by the
> improvements of the steam machine in England, English has become the
> /lingua franca/ of technology (even though the French often still
> disagree, preferring words like « ordinateur » and « octet » over
> “computer” and “byte”, respectively¹).  (With the Internet at the latest,
> then, it has also become the /lingua franca/ of science, although Latin
> terms are common in medicine.)

And this is a BAD THING. Monoculture is harmful, and science and technology
is becoming a monoculture: Anglo-American language expressing
Anglo-American ideas, regardless of the nationality of the scientist or
engineer.

During the heyday of the scientific revolution, the sciences and mathematics
were much diverse. Depending on your field, the professional scientist
needed at least a working knowledge of German, French, English and Latin,
possibly some Greek and Russian. Likewise for engineering.

I don't think that it is a coincidence that the great scientific theories
like relativity (both of them), quantum mechanics, evolution by natural
selection and continental drift had time to mature in smaller, national
communities before diffusing out to broader international communities.

Fortunately at least some people are aware of the problem and doing
something about it:

https://blog.stackoverflow.com/2014/02/cant-we-all-be-reasonable-and-speak-english/

Unlike the rest of us, Stackoverflow have actually run the numbers: 

10% of the world's programmers are in China
1.4% of their visits come from China

so either Chinese developers are so brilliant and knowledgeable that they
have no need of Stackoverflow, or they're unable to make use of it because
they cannot participate in English-only forums.


>> Nowadays software companies and communities are international. You never
>> know who needs to maintain your code. At work, I need to maintain code
>> that was created in Japan, with coworkers from all over the world. The
>> Japanese author had had a hard time with English, and made some
>> awkward naming choices, but had the common sense to use English-only
>> names in his code.
> 
> One will have a hard time finding a company or community, international or
> not, that does not have at least a basic knowledge of English included in
> what they require of a software developer.

Particularly if one keeps a Euro-centric perspective and doesn't look to
Asia or Brazil.



-- 
Steven