4 ms·

It might seem less credible to encounter English in a place where it’s less expected, but think of it this way: would a Yandex-developed ClickHouse database be

It might seem less credible to encounter English in a place where it’s less expected, but think of it this way: would a Yandex-developed ClickHouse database be adopted by Chinese devs if everything in it were written in Russian? There is some merit in asking your question, for there’s an unspoken rule (and a source of endless frustration) that business-/domain-related terms should remain in the language of their origin. Otherwise, (real-life story) "Leitungsauskunft" could end up being translated as "line information" or even "channel interface" ("pipeline inquiry" should be correct, it's a type of document you can procure from the [German] government). Ironically, I’m currently working in an environment where we decided to translate such terms, and it hasn’t helped with understanding of the business logic at all. Furthermore, it adds an element of surprise and a topic for debate whenever somebody comes up with a "more accurate translation". So if anything, English is a sign of a battle-hardened developer, until they try to convert proper names.

denysvitali 2y ago
In the wild I've seen a company returning a JSON key "ankunftTime" in one of their APIs
- Timwi 2y ago
  Anyone remember T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM?
  - BlueTemplar 2y ago
    No, but thanks : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33829645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33829645
    - smcin 2y ago
      The original 2013 post is 404 and was not archived by IA: https://philsturgeon.com/blog/2013/09/wtf-is-t-paamayim-nekudotayim/ https://philsturgeon.com/blog/2013/09/wtf-is-t-paamayim-neku...
      - ficklepickle 2y ago
        Here is an archive link https://archive.ph/ACL9Q https://archive.ph/ACL9Q
        smcin 2y ago
        Ok. A better, less ephemeral link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_resolution_operator#PHP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_resolution_operator#PHP . 'T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM' is the PHP parser's name for the '::' double-colon/scope-resolution-operator token; it means 'T_DOUBLE_COLON' in Hebrew, hence related parser error messages mean "Unexpected double-colon/scope-resolution-operator found". There was some controversy in the PHP community in 2013 about keeping the non-English naming as it was widely considered confusing to users.
  - elros 2y ago
    It's 2025, I've used PHP professionally maybe for a few months out of the last 20 years, the languages I use mostly don't have `::` as a token, and still, I find it really hard to refer to it as anything other than Paamayim Nekudotayim :-) Old habits die hard I guess...
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  Google tells me that "ankunft" means arrival in German. Is that correct?
  - whilenot-dev 2y ago
    Correct, it's "arrival time". It isn't uncommon to find german variable names in codebases that predate web 1.0 or linux. Now that I think about it, german is especially good at creating words by concatination. So "arrival time" should just be the single word "Ankunftszeit" - "ankunftZeit" feels a bit off.
    - TeMPOraL 2y ago
      Yup. If languages were characters in a computer RPG, they'd have "special skills" listed on their character cards. Off the top of my head: - English: verbing and nouning. All languages have ways of introducing new words, but only in English I've seen it accepted as something anyone can casually do in a throwaway manner. Have a noun but want to talk about the (contextually) default action related to the noun? No big deal, just stick an "-ing" or "-ed" to its end and carry on. I adore this feature. - German: word concatenation you mention, it's a killer feature. And then there's the peculiar grammar that puts the most important verb at the very end of a sentence, giving you stuff like "Gegen die hohen Preise für Gas, Strom und Treibstoff will die Regierung etwas machen", meaning "The government wants to do something about the high prices for gas, electricity and fuel", but structured as "<tone> <stuff> <blah> <blah> <subject> <stuff> do something". So not only you need to listen to the end of a sentence to know what it's about, but you can actually zone out a bit early on, catch the last few words, and still recover the meaning. I'm sure one could write an interesting signal processing take on this. (If anyone knows examples of such unique/special "skills" for other languages, I'd love to hear about them!)
      - iggldiggl 2y ago
        > And then there's the peculiar grammar that puts the most important verb at the very end of a sentence An American woman visiting Berlin - intent on hearing Bismarck speak - obtained two tickets for the Reichstag visitors' gallery and enlisted an interpreter to accompany her. Soon after their arrival, Bismarck rose and began to speak. The interpreter, however, simply sat listening with intense concentration. The woman, anxious for him to begin translating, nudged and budged him, to no avail. Finally, unable to control herself any longer, the woman burst out: "What is he saying!?" "Patience, madam," the interpreter replied. "I am waiting for the verb."
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  In my experience, Germany is the most common exception to the "programming is done in English" rule. In general, these things happen, and are not restricted to pre-Internet times - in fact, I most often see it in random webshit SaaS developed in Europe - things like, say, food delivery - Pyszne.pl and pizzaportal.pl (defunct) come to my mind. Those sites tend to be well-localized, so they seem like local businesses targeting the national market. But then you accidentally look at an URL deep in ordering form, or the ordering form breaks and you pull up dev tools to fix it, and suddenly you realize the SaaS operator is actually German or Swedish or Dutch, and they're just deploying the same platform across the EU, with a really good localization polish.
  - StefanBatory 2y ago
    Speaking on Polish websites, function czyWybranoPsa() { var isPies = false; var bil_dod_psy_arr = [17, 18, 19]; // psa, psa-asystenta, psa-przewodnika $(".bilet_dodatkowy").each(function(idx, elem) { if (bil_dod_psy_arr.indexOf(parseInt($(elem).val())) > -1) { isPies = true; } }); return isPies; } ;)

denysvitali 2y ago

In the wild I've seen a company returning a JSON key "ankunftTime" in one of their APIs

Timwi 2y ago
Anyone remember T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM?
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  No, but thanks : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33829645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33829645
  - smcin 2y ago
    The original 2013 post is 404 and was not archived by IA: https://philsturgeon.com/blog/2013/09/wtf-is-t-paamayim-nekudotayim/ https://philsturgeon.com/blog/2013/09/wtf-is-t-paamayim-neku...
    - ficklepickle 2y ago
      Here is an archive link https://archive.ph/ACL9Q https://archive.ph/ACL9Q
      - smcin 2y ago
        Ok. A better, less ephemeral link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_resolution_operator#PHP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_resolution_operator#PHP . 'T_PAAMAYIM_NEKUDOTAYIM' is the PHP parser's name for the '::' double-colon/scope-resolution-operator token; it means 'T_DOUBLE_COLON' in Hebrew, hence related parser error messages mean "Unexpected double-colon/scope-resolution-operator found". There was some controversy in the PHP community in 2013 about keeping the non-English naming as it was widely considered confusing to users.
- elros 2y ago
  It's 2025, I've used PHP professionally maybe for a few months out of the last 20 years, the languages I use mostly don't have `::` as a token, and still, I find it really hard to refer to it as anything other than Paamayim Nekudotayim :-) Old habits die hard I guess...
throwaway2037 2y ago
Google tells me that "ankunft" means arrival in German. Is that correct?
- whilenot-dev 2y ago
  Correct, it's "arrival time". It isn't uncommon to find german variable names in codebases that predate web 1.0 or linux. Now that I think about it, german is especially good at creating words by concatination. So "arrival time" should just be the single word "Ankunftszeit" - "ankunftZeit" feels a bit off.
  - TeMPOraL 2y ago
    Yup. If languages were characters in a computer RPG, they'd have "special skills" listed on their character cards. Off the top of my head: - English: verbing and nouning. All languages have ways of introducing new words, but only in English I've seen it accepted as something anyone can casually do in a throwaway manner. Have a noun but want to talk about the (contextually) default action related to the noun? No big deal, just stick an "-ing" or "-ed" to its end and carry on. I adore this feature. - German: word concatenation you mention, it's a killer feature. And then there's the peculiar grammar that puts the most important verb at the very end of a sentence, giving you stuff like "Gegen die hohen Preise für Gas, Strom und Treibstoff will die Regierung etwas machen", meaning "The government wants to do something about the high prices for gas, electricity and fuel", but structured as "<tone> <stuff> <blah> <blah> <subject> <stuff> do something". So not only you need to listen to the end of a sentence to know what it's about, but you can actually zone out a bit early on, catch the last few words, and still recover the meaning. I'm sure one could write an interesting signal processing take on this. (If anyone knows examples of such unique/special "skills" for other languages, I'd love to hear about them!)
    - iggldiggl 2y ago
      > And then there's the peculiar grammar that puts the most important verb at the very end of a sentence An American woman visiting Berlin - intent on hearing Bismarck speak - obtained two tickets for the Reichstag visitors' gallery and enlisted an interpreter to accompany her. Soon after their arrival, Bismarck rose and began to speak. The interpreter, however, simply sat listening with intense concentration. The woman, anxious for him to begin translating, nudged and budged him, to no avail. Finally, unable to control herself any longer, the woman burst out: "What is he saying!?" "Patience, madam," the interpreter replied. "I am waiting for the verb."
TeMPOraL 2y ago
In my experience, Germany is the most common exception to the "programming is done in English" rule. In general, these things happen, and are not restricted to pre-Internet times - in fact, I most often see it in random webshit SaaS developed in Europe - things like, say, food delivery - Pyszne.pl and pizzaportal.pl (defunct) come to my mind. Those sites tend to be well-localized, so they seem like local businesses targeting the national market. But then you accidentally look at an URL deep in ordering form, or the ordering form breaks and you pull up dev tools to fix it, and suddenly you realize the SaaS operator is actually German or Swedish or Dutch, and they're just deploying the same platform across the EU, with a really good localization polish.
- StefanBatory 2y ago
  Speaking on Polish websites, function czyWybranoPsa() { var isPies = false; var bil_dod_psy_arr = [17, 18, 19]; // psa, psa-asystenta, psa-przewodnika $(".bilet_dodatkowy").each(function(idx, elem) { if (bil_dod_psy_arr.indexOf(parseInt($(elem).val())) > -1) { isPies = true; } }); return isPies; } ;)