17 ms·

All READMEs in English, all code in Portuguese? Really?

by Thunderer 14y ago

mariusmg 14y ago
I'd never understood while people code in their native language. It's just so.....wrong.
- fhars 14y ago
  So, which language should American programmers use in their code?
  - FraaJad 14y ago
    What nation do you belong to?
    - mariusmg 14y ago
      I'm from Romania. Coding in your native language is likely used as a safeguard....it means it will be very hard to outsource the product :) . Coding in your native language on a OSS project is even worse.
- route66 14y ago
  I'll help you. Develop an application for support of financial and tax regulations for a certain country. You will have verbs and nouns which describe the situation clearly. You develop an application from specifications written another language than English. They exist. The biggest failure I keep seeing are futile attempts to translate concepts under these circumstances into English. I agree in this case: when you want to invite collaboration on github, English (or Chinese?) would be better suited.
  - Thunderer 14y ago
    Even in financial / tax software it is possible to create an abstraction in which you can safely write English code and move all specific terms into some i18n module. Of course if you are not clever enough to do that it's not that bad to use /required/ language, but in this case we talk about strictly technical tool for database modeling, so no excuses - it definitely needs to be translated in order to be accessible for other GitHubbers.
- dserodio 14y ago
  Ever heard of Domain Driven Design? Your customer's problem domain is best expressed in their native language. But for Open Source projects coding in English is probably the best way to attract contributors.
lzm 14y ago
Most people don't speak English in Brazil, or do so very poorly.
- nealabq 14y ago
  Same situation in the USA.
rcamera 14y ago
I might fork it later tonight and translate both code and comments to English. Might be an interesting experience... Will update here later with an English fork.

All READMEs in English, all code in Portuguese? Really?

mariusmg 14y ago

I'd never understood while people code in their native language. It's just so.....wrong.

fhars 14y ago
So, which language should American programmers use in their code?
- FraaJad 14y ago
  What nation do you belong to?
  - mariusmg 14y ago
    I'm from Romania. Coding in your native language is likely used as a safeguard....it means it will be very hard to outsource the product :) . Coding in your native language on a OSS project is even worse.
route66 14y ago
I'll help you. Develop an application for support of financial and tax regulations for a certain country. You will have verbs and nouns which describe the situation clearly. You develop an application from specifications written another language than English. They exist. The biggest failure I keep seeing are futile attempts to translate concepts under these circumstances into English. I agree in this case: when you want to invite collaboration on github, English (or Chinese?) would be better suited.
- Thunderer 14y ago
  Even in financial / tax software it is possible to create an abstraction in which you can safely write English code and move all specific terms into some i18n module. Of course if you are not clever enough to do that it's not that bad to use /required/ language, but in this case we talk about strictly technical tool for database modeling, so no excuses - it definitely needs to be translated in order to be accessible for other GitHubbers.
dserodio 14y ago
Ever heard of Domain Driven Design? Your customer's problem domain is best expressed in their native language. But for Open Source projects coding in English is probably the best way to attract contributors.

lzm 14y ago

Most people don't speak English in Brazil, or do so very poorly.

nealabq 14y ago
Same situation in the USA.

rcamera 14y ago

I might fork it later tonight and translate both code and comments to English. Might be an interesting experience... Will update here later with an English fork.