Marko Rauhamaa wrote: > Steven D'Aprano <st...@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.) > 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. ____________ ¹ Years ago, I was helping a French colleague with her computer, and was surprised to read “Mo” instead of “MB” in the status bar of Windows Explorer. -- PointedEars Twitter: @PointedEars2 Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail. -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
