Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!scrumpy!bnrmtl@bnr.ca!eric
From: eric@bnrmtl.bnr.ca (Eric Brunelle)
Subject: Re: Coding in English
Message-ID: <1991Jan22.211419.2208@scrumpy@.bnr.ca>
Sender: news@scrumpy@.bnr.ca (USENET (Sandy Young))
Reply-To: eric@bnrmtl.bnr.ca
Organization: Recherches Bell Northern Montreal, Quebec.
References: <747@cbmger.UUCP> <8179@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> <755@cbmger.UUCP> <1991Jan20.023612.14976@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 91 21:14:19 GMT

In article <1991Jan20.023612.14976@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes:
|> 
|> When computer programming first spread outside the Anglophon nations,
|> the situation was the same as for the airlines and the ships and other
|> communications needs that were no respectors of national borders;
|> programming was done, and spoken of, and documented, in English, so that
|> we wouldn't be involved in a Babel of diverse languages when porting
|> software.

That's what YOU think.  We've been programming in French for the last 
seventeen years, and we were not the first.  I don't know what "jingoism"
is, but can you say "nombrilisme"?

|> Now, Amiga UUCP-Plus is available, but you'd better know the author's
|> native tongue if you want to read the docs; you can get a great PD TeX,
|> and the docs will show up, someday. You can get Unix lharc, and the docs
|> are almost in English, but they throw in the Japanese ones for those who
|> really want to understand the software.

Hey, welcome to the world.  Now you know how we have felt for a couple of
decades.

|> I liked it better when the whole world was busy trying to speak _my_
|> language.  Maybe a little kick-ass war will bring English back to
|> respectability.
|> 
|> Probably a smiley should be in there someplace, but I learned German,
|> Latin, and Spanish, and I still want to see the code and docs and even
|> commentary in English, damnit.

Well maybe you should consider doing it yourself.

|> Kent, the man from xanth.
|> <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
|> --
|> ONE world requires ONE language.

Yeah, right.  And that should be _my_ language, French.  And I'm ready
to receive your missiles and bombers.

Global ;-)

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Eric Brunelle                     |     "C'est la nuit qu'il est beau
                                    |      de croire a la lumiere"
  eric%bnrmtl@iro.umontreal.ca      |         -- Rostand, Chantecler
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------