this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2022
6 points (63.6% liked)
General Programming Discussion
7814 readers
5 users here now
A general programming discussion community.
Rules:
- Be civil.
- Please start discussions that spark conversation
Other communities
Systems
Functional Programming
Also related
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I have found myself thinking this more and more as well, with the rising number of projects which are being developed primarily by/for speakers of other languages, sometimes with terrible to non-existent english support. This is not a new problem, but the natural consequence of the world breaking free of english hegemony. Where as the pain was felt before by others, now it will be felt by us as well.
Perhaps the problem could be offset somewhat by using software to translate the common symbols of the major programming languages (if, else, int, float, str, etc...). But generally speaking I think the time for a commonly accepted auxiliary language is now. Not necessarily Esperanto, which I think is an impressive accomplishment of it's time (kaj kiun mi parolas), but I think a modern -and international- effort could produce a superior language.
But we do need a better solution, and I think Esperanto is a better solution.
I love how this is always framed: "…terrible to non-existent English support…"
There's about 400 million native English speakers in the world. There's about a billion native Mandarin speakers in the world. Why is it never framed "…terrible to non-existent Mandarin support…"? There's about 475 million native Spanish speakers in the world. Why is it never framed "…terrible to non-existent Spanish support…"?
Even the way internationalists frame things is very telling.
Because I do not speak those other languages, and -attempt- not to be so presumptuous as to speak beyond my experience. But those are also problems, greater problems than the one I mentioned, problems that have been troubling this world for decades now, forever even.
Notice that I didn't say that those projects should support English. I didn't suggest there was anything wrong that they didn't. And to be clear I don't even mean to suggest that they must support any kind of IAL, even if one were agreed upon. The people of the world should be free to include others or serve their own... but I think generally people prefer to collaborate, and collaboration is something which should be facilitated.
The way things are interpreted also says something about the reader. This is a sensitive subject for you, and I'd bet rightly so. You should take care of yourself. Try not to get so worked up.