Interestingly, all programming is done in English, but...

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June 22nd, 2003, 10:31 PM

vb.net

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Interestingly, all programming is done in English, but...

I asked myself a question a few years ago: "Do people in Japan write code in Japanese?" I think I have found my answer, and that is No, they write code in English. If I am correct, I believe all programming is done in English.

This means everyone probably need some English tutorial before starting to program, although I can certainly imagine some Russian genius being able to sweep through a language without knowing what FOR, IF, and WHILE mean. However, life can still be miserable to read code written from a Non-English programmer. Consider comments written in Chinese, for example, which I have thrown in a little bit of in this piece of code.

Code:

open (file, "jog.txt");
# µ«ÊÂ¼ÊÉÏ, ÓÐ´ÓÎ´ÊÇÈÎºÎ
@array = <file>;
foreach (@array)
{
  #ÎªÊ²Ã´, ¹·ÓÐÃ«Æ¤?
  print "ÓÐËüÂð?\n";
}

With all the big companies having divisions in many countries, I wonder how they maintain their code on an international level. Certainly makes re-using code more difficult. I also wonder if it's more difficult for non-English speakers to pick up programming languages.

June 23rd, 2003, 12:18 AM

icrf

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I've edited code that was in german before. Comments I could make do without, but it's the variable names that threw me. Should consider myself lucky, at least they use most of the same character set. :/

June 23rd, 2003, 12:40 AM

a.koepke

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Many other countries have close neighbouring countries that have a different language. It is not uncommon for people overseas to speak more than one language, children are taught English in many Eurpoean primary schools.

Knowing more than one language may come as weird to us since in the UK, US, Australia its not that common (except in some parts of the US where quite a few speak Spanish).

I know 2 languages but thats because I was born overseas and have been raised with that language all around me in my family. I do encounter so many people that are like 'What you know another language, wow!' Its something different for us here, but its not that way in the other countries.

June 23rd, 2003, 01:26 AM

AlCapone

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^^ he talks with animals. g0ats to be specific

vb.net, sorry to disapoint you - no there aren't any russian geniuses like that, every signle one of them knows what 'if','for', and 'while' mean. And I work for multicultural company with employees from 9 countries, yet we all code and comment in english. This is sort of 'duh' standard - thou I did have a miserable experience debugging code in spanish

That was just horrible. I think everyone should comment in language that I can read best.

BTW, since domains are coming in differnet flavours now, may be it's not far untill we see compliers that accept different languages....

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June 23rd, 2003, 08:55 AM

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Programming in English has to do with the history of programming... most of the languages used today, or their 'ancestors', were invented in the USA - Fortran (IBM), C (Bell Labs), BASIC, etc etc. Now, this is not to say that there are no languages used today that were developed outside the US (PHP would be a good example

)...

I had the same question that vb.net had - I got the answer from my boss, who is a native of Venezuela. I was surprised at first as well, but the historical aspect of it makes sense (sort of).

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June 23rd, 2003, 09:07 AM

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The hardest part about doing anything across a language barrier isn't the comments, which can usually at least be translated to some degree, it is always the variables.

I deal with a lot of German developed programs, and the hardest part of dealing with them is the variable names. They are abbreviated German. So while some I can translate easily (MENGE, ARTNR, etc...) others can really be a pain in the arse (KDTLNR, KZ_IOART, etc...).

When people use abbreviated names for variables it really sucks. I could understand this for the very old programs, but now size limitation really isn't a concern, so why do it?

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June 23rd, 2003, 09:25 AM

a.koepke

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saves typing

I hate it when MS Access programmers who only ever use the Query Builder wizard name columns in a table.... see things like

Table tblProducts
tblProduct_ID
tblProduct_Details_Summary
tblProduct_Details_Detailed_Description
tblProduct_Details_Wholesale_Cost_Price

After typing one SQL query in VBA you have had enough of the long names

June 23rd, 2003, 10:10 AM

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I know that it saves typing, but it still sucks majorly and it doesn't really help that much anymore. Even when you go back to your own code several months or in rare situations a year or two later you will be stuck trying to figure it out yourself what that abbreviation means.
There is also no reason to give names that are 50 characters long. That's just crazy.

June 23rd, 2003, 10:16 AM

a.koepke

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I do agree that variables should be descriptive, but also not stupid in length.

Don't do things like a Flintstones naming convention...

PHP Code:


		
			
 $fred=0;

$barney=file("text.txt");

$wilma=count($barney);

#........... cont.

#10

June 23rd, 2003, 10:23 AM

Onslaught

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I agree also.

#11

June 23rd, 2003, 10:28 AM

a.koepke

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Or if you want to be a troll use really long variable names and have them very similar

PHP Code:


		
			
 $ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdnbukstbnsurtnvsez=0;

$ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdmbukstbnsurtnvsez=file("text.txt");

$ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdnbuketbnsurtnvsez=count($ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdmbukstbnsurtnvsez);



for ($ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdmbutstbnsurtnvsez=0;$ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdmbutstbnsurtnvsez<$ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdnbuketbnsurtnvsez;$ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdmbutstbnsurtnvsez++)

 {

  print $ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdmbukstbnsurtnvsez[$ahjfhdnsadcfvnufdmbutstbnsurtnvsez];

 }