

Why knowing English is important for every software developer - volpav
http://volgarev.me/blog/why-knowing-english-is-important-for-every-software-developer

======
neebz
I cannot tell you how much I agree with this.

When someone in US says good communication skills are important, they think
it's racist.

I am from Pakistan. When I tell colleagues to master English, they think I am
still mentally under British imperialism.

There is a huge trove of knowledge on the internet which you can only benefit
from if you can read/write English.

It was only after I focused on my English that I was able to stay up to date
with latest tech, prevent reinventing the wheels and get remote jobs. I could
always feel that English gave me a superior advantage over my colleagues.

~~~
k__
You're so right. Here in Germany are many people who don't want to speak
english, even if they had it at school for 13 years...

But if I wouldn't speak english, I had to read german news only or couldn't
use stackoverflow. 90% of the newest technology would be useless for me,
because I couldn't read any documentations or tutorials.

~~~
vacri
I vaguely remember Linux Torvalds saying he developed linux in English, and it
didn't really occur to him to develop it in Finnish, since English is a better
language for dealing with technical issues.

From my (potentially quite flawed) understanding, English, French, and German
are all good languages for capturing technical concepts, but English won out
in general, simply because it's much bigger - more native speakers (thanks
USA) and more widely spread (thanks British colonialism).

~~~
jeena
Or because the Germans lost WW2. It would be interesting to see another time-
line in which they didn't just to test my hypothesis.

"... German advanced to become one of the most important languages of science
and scholarship, and at the beginning of the twentieth century ranked above
English and French, especially in the sciences. In order to keep abreast of
the latest developments, scientists and scholars all over the world learned
German, a circumstance that contributed to German’s becoming one of the most
widespread foreign languages. With the end of the First World War, the “primal
catastrophe” of the twentieth century, a reverse tendency arose. Germany and
Austria had been economically ruined by the war and were in no position to
invest in research and knowledge to the same degree as before. ..." (from
[http://www.goethe.de/ges/spa/pan/spw/en3889454.htm](http://www.goethe.de/ges/spa/pan/spw/en3889454.htm)
)

~~~
riffraff
while I don't have access to another timeline, russia, china and (to some
extent) france did win the war, but none of their language became a new lingua
franca.

I'd suppose the closest thing to a nazi-controlled-germanized-europe would be
the USSR (people escaping, restrictions on freedoms hindering creativity, no
colonies speaking the same language, trade issues with the rest of the world)
which in fifty years failed to establish a linguistic dominance even in
aligned countries.

------
jballanc
I've often said that English is to programming as Latin is to medicine.
Programmers will be writing "if" statements and "for" loops long after no one
uses "if" or "for" in daily conversation.

So it is as important for programmers to understand English as it is for
doctors to understand Latin. Of course, most doctors may _understand_ Latin,
but they wouldn't be able to _converse_ in Latin. In that sense, English is
also the programmer's lingua franca.

That term -- lingua franca -- is an interesting one. In addition to being used
as a colloquialism for "a common language" it was also, itself, a language:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_Lingua_Franca)
. Just as Lingua Franca eventually took on a life (and grammar and vocabulary)
of its own, I expect "hacker English" will, over time, do the same. In fact
already my (English-speaking) wife thinks that I'm speaking a foreign language
half the time when I'm talking with colleagues over Skype.

It's less important to know "English", and much _more_ important to speak,
converse, and communicate with other hackers using the _lingua franca_ of the
day.

~~~
loxs
Actually English has completely replaced Latin in medical circles as the Ligua
Franca. Even the terminology (still based on Latin though) is English.

~~~
jballanc
English is the Lingua Franca, but the terminology is (last I checked) still
_heavily_ Latin. Anterior this, Rostral that...a this-ectomy or a that-
otomy...even "heart attack" is properly a Cardiac Infarct, from the Latin
"infarctus": stuffed into.

I realize that the days of requiring Latin as part of a medical education are
behind us (though not _that_ far behind us), but Latin's footprints are all
over the practice of medicine. I think the reason this isn't more obvious is
that, in medicine, "Latin" is mostly interchangeable with "jargon" or
"terminology" \-- it's just "something you learn".

Someone else asked about a programming language like Ruby, which was developed
in Japan and whose early users were all Japanese, why does it still use "def",
"if", "for", etc. As an English speaker one is tempted to ask, "Why do the
Japanese use English", but I would wager that the Japanese would respond,
"What English? This is just programming terminology."

~~~
loxs
Yeah, but most of the time, Anglicized forms of the Latin words are in use.
Increasingly so, even in the non-English speaking world. Even in your example,
the correct Latin form is "Infarctus Miocardii" and Cardiac Infarct is heavily
Anglicized. And although we still learn the Latin terms in Bulgaria, I can't
really see that lasting very long.

------
gbog
I'd like to offer a counter-point here.

I work in a Chinese company with more than 200 Chinese programmers, I'm the
only foreigner.

It is obviously important for a software developer to "know English", and all
my colleagues do, just as it is important to know how to find your way in a
reference book, or how to ask a question to Google and StackOverflow. It is a
tool, an important tool, but only a tool.

What I have experienced more than often is that young Chinese people who are
proficient in English and spent a lot of time getting their accent out of the
way, are not always the best hackers and the most interesting persons. For
them English is more than a tool, and they spend less time coding and more
time discussing about code.

So to all these pro-English posts here: Yes, it is necessary; but only as a
tool, and should not become a finality (unless we are talking about students
in linguistics).

Why would I insist on making this point here and there (and get holes in my HN
karma)? Because insisting on "fluent spoken English" and "Foreign accent" just
makes life more miserable and humiliating to the so many people who open their
mind and their life to the world, by the mean of this new Lingua Franca.

Americans know no fear, feel no shame. It's what makes them so strong and
optimistic and creative. "Shy american" is an oximoron, but "Shy Chinese" (or
Japanese) is a tautology. Let's not forget that other people are made
differently.

------
kiba
Right now, I am trying to fix my spelling and grammar. I do this through
feedback with the people who I am chating with on IRC.

I am also building SRS(Spaced repetition systems) decks cataloging grammar
mistakes I made, formal grammar rules, as well all the spelling mistakes I
made. Right now, I have 25 cards for spelling, and 55 for grammar.

The process of noticing my mistakes, being corrected, and learning about
errors is a slow process. It has been going on for a month now. Two of my
biggest issues are verb conjugations and plurals.

Edit: Fixed according to feedback

~~~
EllaMentry
English is a tricky language, good on you for attempting to master it - you
can write better in English than I can in any other language!

I hope you don't mind me providing some feedback on your writing!

"I am trying to fix my spellings and grammar." \- We generally say "spelling
and grammar", even though "spellings" is technically correct - when people say
they want to improve their spelling, they generally talk about a skill rather
than individual spellings.

"It been going on for a month now." \- It (has) been going on for a month now
- although this could have easily been a typo.

Best wishes on your endeavour.

~~~
nthitz
"It has been going on for a month now." can also be said, using a contraction,
as "It's been going on for a month now." which possibly could've easily led to
your mistake.

------
Intimatik
As a native Russian speaker i totally agree with you. It always upsets me when
people try to stick with their native language all the time. Basically, Russia
(like any country) is only a small part of all the world. If you try to avoid
speaking/reading in some other languages you're closing most of the
possibilities(i mean books, movies, jokes etc.) for yourself.

Hello from Moscow, tovarisch :)

------
yason
That's how I learned English. Not in school but because I was programming and
my native language was lagging a couple of decades behind when it came to
programming materials and books.

And once you use it for programming, it's logical to use it for asking
questions on the Usenet (then) or internet forums (today), and reading papers
on interesting subjects, and communicate with your peer programmers or
contacts around the world. By then you realize how much you would lose in any
translation which makes you want to read any novels written in English too and
watch films without subtitles. And eventually you land your first job where
you also need to speak English in addition to your native language, and maybe
in your second job English is the primary language of the company and you only
use your native one for chitchatting locally over a cup of coffee. Roughly, by
that time, English has slowly become the second native language in your life.

------
clu3
Cant agree more. These days, I lead and train a dev team here at codersquare
in Vietnam. For recruitment, English skills, esp reaing + writing are weighed
as much as technical skills. And I provide English lessons on a regular basis
as well.

Can't really emphasize enough the importance of English in software. I've had
bad experience with devs with weak English skills.

1\. Can't google for the right terms so normally finding a solution takes 3
times longer than a dev with proficient E skills. 2\. Can't name
functions/classes or comment properly thus producing bad qualiry code. 3\.
Misunderstand requirements sometimes. This one can be very costly. 4\. Takes
much longer time to study new stuff.

2cents

------
lgbr
Knowing English is important for every startup, let alone every software
developer.

1\. Outside of English-speaking countries, and particularly in the Schengen
area, teams are made up of people whose first language isn't the local
language. This means that all internal communication happens in English.
Companies that make an effort to operate in English internally have a much,
much easier time hiring.

2\. Investment often comes from outside the country, particularly from the US,
even if your company doesn't operate or sell outside of its home country. Your
CEO is going to have to pitch your company in English, and your investors are
going to have foreigners perform their due diligence.

~~~
jeena
About 1. it is so true. When I was the first developer at a startup in
Stockholm I told my boss that we should really do all the documentation in
English and only talk Swedish on the phone or in personal email. When starting
we've only been me (from Germany) and two swedes, my boss and the guy with the
money.

The first person we hired (that is besides me) was a Spaniard who didn't speak
Swedish. The second was also Spanish and didn't speak Swedish either. The
third was from Ukraina, she spoke Swedish quite ok already. And this went on
in this direction, Norwegians, Greeks, more Spaniards, etc.

So our decision to go English all the way made hiring much much easier from
the beginning and now English became the language half of the staff is
communicating in even if you meet them in person.

------
bdcravens
Ignorant American here, asking of the non-native English speakers:

As most (every?) programming language is "in English", does this impair
understanding? (for, in, throw, select, from - all English words whose
meanings are more or less in line with the programming concept they define)
(Even Ruby, created by a Japanese, is "English")

For those who write/type in languages that require Unicode: since you
typically code in ASCII, was this a challenge to learn? (do modern languages
support Unicode for things like variable names? I've never seen Hebrew,
Chinese, etc code - does anyone have any examples?)

~~~
Hellion
I know that many programming languages (for example C), have long had
tokenizers that are non-English. So the language is the same, the words are
different.

~~~
captainpiggies
On a similar note Excel commands are probably the most infuriating thing since
I learned programming fro me because they are all in the regional language in
my case German and make no sense to me now. (Example IF is WENN in German)

It drives me nuts.

------
hershel
I wonder: isn't that becoming true for all knowledge work?

With the great university courses available in english(MOOC), best web content
both formal(research journals) and informal(forums/sites) available in
english, And tools usually give error messages in english ,doesn't english
give huge advantage in most knwoledge areas ?

------
erhardm
I definitely agree. I choose to study CS in English because of this. CS is
made to be taught in English. I have a friend who was struggling in English
and when she applied for a job the interviewer didn't even asked how her
English was, all the interviewer questions were in English.

~~~
jeena
I once had a job interview at Opera (the browser) in Oslo. They said: "Ok we
want you to work here, but you _really_ need to improve your English." That
was a couple of years ago and it was literally the first time I spoke more
then one sentence in English in a conversation outside of School, haha :D
Since then I did improve it quite a lot.

------
l33tfr4gg3r
English is not my native language, although my entire schooling and upbringing
were in English. One of the resources I found useful in improving the quality
of the _written_ word was "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk. The
e-book can be found on Bartleby
([http://www.bartleby.com/141/](http://www.bartleby.com/141/)) or, if you so
prefer, a dead tree version is available on Amazon.

------
spindritf
ESR also considers it a core skill for a hacker[1].

This whole controversy is completely manufactured.

[1] [http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-
howto.html#skills4](http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#skills4)

------
bobdvb
This summer I was talking to my wife's cousin, he wanted to be a programmer
but his English was poor and he struggled. That was a long time ago, now he is
trying to learn English again and is also learning Java.

------
Dewie
If I didn't already know English, I wouldn't have been able to learn
programming. My curriculum in university has been largely in English.

------
hippiefahrzeug
I just couldn't read past the "who're"...

~~~
volpav
If there's a language rule that says you can't combine these two this way, I'd
be more than happy to learn about it. English is not my mother language so I
apologize for any grammar/spelling mistakes in advance ;-)

~~~
cynwoody
It's perfectly valid English. "Who're" is a contraction of "who are"†.

However, for some reason, unlike more common contractions, it is much more
common in spoken English than in written.

†[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/who're](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/who're)

