Re: if vs. when vs. and: style question

[Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se>]

Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> The Italian, French, Spanish, and German programmers
> are more than capable of coding in English. If they
> are not, which they are, they can learn while doing
> it, and do while learning it. This will make the
> better programmers as well. Source code in any other
> language than the old Anglo-American is a dead end for
> many reasons, not just the impractical side of it.
> Don't do it.

There are a couple of gray-zones, I just realized.

For example books on computers: should they only be in
English as well?

Well, I think the general trend has been in that
direction for several years and especially with the
degree of specialization that comes with the field.
Soon it will be a de facto situation. But general
textbooks can absolutely be in whatever language, tho
then they must provide the English equivalents of all
lingo - often, there isn't even such a word in the
non-English language, which will make the book choppy,
sometimes, but that's unavoidable. Once I read a book
which was some 1000 pages or close on databases.
That was in Swedish, and I don't think I would have
mustered it if it had been in English, but I'm not
sure. There is also the altruistic side to it. If all
specialists just do epigon works in their own
languages, instead of taking on the entire audience
trying to advance things on a world scale, there will
be much a slower pace of innovation...

As for on-line documentation, for example man pages
and such, those should be in English as they are often
of the reference kind. Nonetheless there have been
translation attempts and the French in particular is
an immense endeavor, but I think that has to do in
part with French pride, and besides that should be
passe anyway as modern-day French programmers have
absolutely no problem doing their stuff in English.

In a way this is a bit sad but in another way it is
for the good, and besides it is reality, so everyone
should just deal with it and move on.

-- 
underground experts united
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