Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!spdcc!merk!alliant!linus!eachus From: eachus@aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech Subject: Re: Bad programming practices: View from the other side... Message-ID: Date: 23 Feb 90 19:36:37 GMT References: <"90-02-14-17:50:45.32*UK4H"@DKAUNI2.BITNET> <4992@wehi.dn.mu.oz> <25dcddd8:964.2comp.sys.amiga.tech;1@tronsbox.UUCP> <10942@saturn.ADS.COM> Sender: news@linus.UUCP Organization: The Mitre Corporation, Bedford, MA Lines: 55 In-reply-to: xanthian@saturn.ADS.COM's message of 18 Feb 90 04:23:53 GMT In article <10942@saturn.ADS.COM> xanthian@saturn.ADS.COM (Metafont Consultant Account) writes: > No, they shouldn't. One of the things that has contributed most to > the spread of software technology worldwide is standardization on > English as the language of programmers. To what good fortune we can > attributed this I know not, and which language it was didn't matter > that much, but don't even suggest messing it up..... Acutally the choice of languge did matter. In many areas of computer science, such as compiler and language design, it seems to be necessary to be fluent in English, Russian, or one of the Germanic languages. Ada is not a counterexample. All of the members of the French led design team were and are fluent in English, and although some would contend that some of the design team discussions were held in English as opposed to American, very little, if any, work was done in French. Even today in Alsys S.A. headquaters in Paris, it is rare to hear technical discussion in French, and the company is partly owned by the French government. Of course, anyone will tell you that whatever language the Algol 68 Revised Report is written in, it isn't English. But that just illustrates why a mutable languge is necessary for programmers--you often have to add new terms to describe new concepts. Even more interesting is that, although people who learned Chinese as a native tounge seem to have a special aptitude for compiler work, it is almost impossible for them to master langauge grammers unless they have mastered English. Before anyone starts flaming, read what I said carefully. This is all about "milk languages" and not about race. I have known people of almost every race who were bi- or multi-lingual, worked on compilers, and learned Chinese as children. Knowing English, Chinese, Russian, and German (or Danish, Swedish, or Dutch) helped greatly in about that order, but in the few cases where I knew someone fluent in Chinese and French, their expertise increased dramatically as they mastered English. Those who spoke, say, Russian, German and Yiddish as children did not improve in technical ability as their English improved. (However their comments got lots more readable. :-) In my experience Japanese, Arabic, and Korean are all poison in the compiler world. If you know them, try to forget them. In a very cosmopolitan computer company I used to work for, it was easy to dig up someone who spoke the language of any visiting customer like a native (even Czech, Vietnamese, and Thai), but we had to hire someone in marketing who could speak Japanese since no one else did. Spanish French, and Italian seem to be only a slight hinderance. -- Robert I. Eachus with STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; use STANDARD_DISCLAIMER; function MESSAGE (TEXT: in CLEVER_IDEAS) return BETTER_IDEAS is...