Michael Nascimento Santos's Blog

The language barrier

Have you imagined how hard it would be to learn and to program in Java if all language keywords, all docs, all things related to Java were written in Klingon? Well, for those who cannot read in English, this is called daily life (those who understand Klingon are not my target audience here).

Most of the talented, gifted young programmers I have known had no clue about English when I first met them. Once you started working with them, you would realize they had't made much progress yet not due to some technical limitation, but rather due to the language barrier. Java keywords made no sense to them, so things that should be natural were hard to learn. Class and method names didn't convey any idea about what they did; they were just hard to memorize. When it came to Javadocs, well, they were just useless. They had to rely on other people's experience and bad translation software to learn about bleeding-edge technology and frameworks. Basically, there were only two possible "happy" outcomes for their situation: either they met a smart senior developer who was able to read in English and that became their mentor or they ended up learning the language, what took several months at best and was not a viable option to all, since some of them did not have the same talent for learning "real" languages or simply couldn't afford a English course (which was needed for some of them).

All this wasted potential has just one cause: the language barrier. It is not really fair to expect people to learn another language in order to become good developers. Learning English and a programming language require very different skill sets and not everyone has both of them. However, this is actually what we expect from these young talented folks. And unfortunately, given our current reality, it is reasonable. After all, how are they supposed to evolve (and to survive) unless they can learn on their own? Hopefully, it seems this situation may change in the near future.

Although we shouldn't expect for a translated version of the Java programming language (nor we would want it, actually), more resources should be available to non-English speakers and, as far as I can tell by observing a few initiatives in the Brazilian community, both the community and Sun care about this issue and are trying to address it.

Recently Sun has provided support (including tools and legal arrangements) to allow volunteers to translate Javadocs to their native language. The Brazilian Portuguese Javadoc translation project, jdk5-api-pt-br.dev.java.net, has already made its first release available . Of course there is still a lot of work to be done in order to have a fully translated copy available and that the need to sign an agreement certainly keep some people away from the effort, but it is a start. I am not involved in this project, but I would like to congratulate everyone who has dedicated some of their time to such a noble goal.

When it comes to articles and tutorials, it is great to see not only an option, but sometimes diversity. In some countries, for instance, there is already more than one magazine about the Java platform, as is the case for Brazil. Great open-source projects, once (and still, sometimes) accused of not having formal documentation, now have translation teams working on their docs. Translated Books become available faster, although quality can be low at times. However, as competent developers who are good at English are now being hired as revisors, the final result tends to improve.

Online book translations definitely take longer, but usually lead to better results. I've founded a translation effort for Bruce Eckel's famous book, Thinking in Java, several years ago (with his permission, of course), and although I am not able to contribute to it anymore, many volunteers keep working on the project, Pensando em Java.

So, what is the point of this post? Actually, there are a few:

• If you are foreigner, change your attitude! Many folks have criticised translation efforts (especially the Javadoc one) because they think it will lead to dumber programmers. The fact is bad programmers will always exist, but good ones now take a lot longer to explore their potential due to the language barrier. As a good developer who wants to work on a great team, you should encourage these initiatives, not the opposite.
• If you have the time, skills and desire, join the translation efforts. You will certainly learn a lot, get to know talented folks and help those who speak your language.
• Recognize the value of original content written in your language, such as magazines and blogs. And, if you can, create original material as well.
• Finally, if you are a developer/commiter/project owner, don't be hard on those asking questions in your lists/forums in a foreign language or even in bad English (worse than mine :-P). Rather try to find users capable of answering their questions on their native language or make specific questions that help you understand what the person wants to know.

When you support those working on making Java easy to learn, no matter what language they speak, you are just strengthening the community. And a strong community will certainly last longer, as well as your current job :-)

PS: for those who speak Portuguese, I've created a new blog at http://blog.michaelnascimento.com.br/.

Para aqueles que falam português, eu criei um novo blog em http://blog.michaelnascimento.com.br/.

Comments

• Although I like the idea of translating basic documentation and tutorials focused on begginers, I really see no point in translation JavaDocs or even 'advanced' books on frameworks or technologies. Translations are often dated and error-prone, besides the fact that we won't translate every intersting material in the world, so who can't speak English (as it is IT's language right now) will lose a lot of content anyway. Also we have the fact that since we're trying to be an off-shore development country we need people that can at least communicate.

  The world won't speak Portuguese and brazilians need to get real soon.

  Anyway, just my humble opinion.

  Posted by: pcalcado on July 27, 2006 at 12:20 PM

• Hi Shoes,

  Let me address the points you've raised.
  First of all, Javadocs are very helpful and should be used by beginners since it will not only help them to know the answer to a specific question they have, but to find answers on their own. So I consider it basic material.
  While I agree with you that most currently available translated books took a lot of time to be released, losing their momentum, and contain terrible mistakes, the situation is improving now as good, well-known developers are revising the work done by translators and publishers are realizing technical books must be made available faster.
  The fact we can't translate everything shouldn't prevent us from translating what we can. It is like saying that since we can't erradicate the problem, we shouldn't do anything about it.
  A major point I forgot to include in this post is that eventually one will have to learn English to keep up-to-date and to communicate with customers or other developers, but this shouldn't be an obstacle to becoming a good developer. You should be able to learn English once you already make enough to pay for a good course - and this is not reality now - and you shouldn't have to learn it into a rush or as an obligation. Learning a foreign language should always be a pleasant experience that you can do at whatever pace you are comfortable with.
  Finally, this issue is not specific to our country. Most techies out there simply don't know enough English to do what they need and we should care about that.

  Posted by: mister__m on July 27, 2006 at 12:48 PM

• Sorry to say, but if i committed a very sizeable chunk of my life learning English (since it's currently the language for any scientific field, including CS), i'm pretty much expecting the same from a beginner programmer who is making his first steps. I'm a foreigner, and i fully recognize the fact that i must have good+ English reading / writing abilities to be a part of the community (or to be a programmer at all). There's no way i'm going to publish blogs in Russian (or any other language i know) since these wouldn't add much to the global knowledge.
  I'm a big proponent of i18n/l10n efforts in any project, but the leap to making the same effort on the Javadocs / documentation is not what i'd recommend. One of the mandatory prerequisites to being a programmer nowadays is English. This may change in 15-20 years to Chinese / Hindu / Spanish / Klingon, but now it's just a waste of time.
  Having Javadocs for JDK translated into (any) other language will not give any incentive to the programmers speaking in that language to learn English. The result would be an "enclave" of (great) programmers that would find it very hard to work with the "outside" world.

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 27, 2006 at 12:53 PM

• If you don't understand Spanish translate this post with your favorite translation tool. Miguel estoy totalmente de acuerdo con vos. Me parece genial que la gente de Brasil haga el esfuerzo de traducir los javadocs al portugués, pero creo que aparte de ese esfuerzo lo que hace falta es que la herramienta permita publicar javadoc en múltiples idiomas para que los usuarios puedan ver el contenido en el idioma de su elección. De modo que el mismo programador pueda generarlo en todos los idiomas que desea y que luego lo pueda generar en todo al mismo tiempo y que se vea como un sitio que permite cambiarlo a gusto. Espero que el resto de programadores que no tiene ingles como lengua materna pongan sus contestaciones en sus idiomas para que todos los de habla inglesa sepan que somos muchos los que somos minoría y que juntos somos la gran mayoría.

  Posted by: estanislaobosch on July 28, 2006 at 05:40 AM

• I think it just a fact of life that Java is English-orientated. If it had been developed in Chinese, I guess I would still be a C programmer.

  Interestingly, python and ruby were both developed in non-English speaking countries but their reserved word are all English.

  As kirillcool said, to be a programmer these days you need to know English.

  Posted by: arae on July 28, 2006 at 06:06 AM

• I spent the better part of 5 years studying English (I am not very good at learning natural languages, especially because my initial teachers were rather poor, being stuck in the 1950s technique of trying to hammer lists of words and grammatical rules into my head) so I could be fluent in it to the degree needed to understand scientific (and now IT related) publications.
  Why you'd expect people to provide every piece of documentation and code they create in a thousand (or more, there are that many) languages just because someone somewhere may not be willing (or able, but that's exceedingly rare in people with the skills to learn Java) to learn English is beyond me.
  And it won't cure anything. Next you'll be asking that we provide versions of our languages and core APIs in each of those languages (of course fully compatible with all other language versions at a source level, so I can write some code with Dutch keywords and my German colleague sitting next to it can open it in Eclipse and see them in German).
  Something like that was tried, and quickly abandoned, by first Borland and later Microsoft. Both efforts went part of the way, then floundered for lack of success and interest from potential users.
  If you're so keen on providing your people with a Portuguese Java, why not create one (including localised versions of the core APIs) and provide a transpiler which transforms that code into proper Java and feeds it to the compiler? If you believe the market is big enough for that you should make a nice buck out of it or at least find a trainload of people willing to help you locally.

  Posted by: jwenting on July 28, 2006 at 06:10 AM

• Although I like English very much, I understand Michael's standpoint. To be honest I wonder why so many people from English speaking countries don't realize how big advantage they were given for free. I would be interested in how many percent of them speak another language at least to the same extent they expect others to speak English. In short, I welcome every activity to share knowledge and support Participation Age.

  I když mám angličtinu moc rád chápu Michalův postoj. Abych řekl pravdu, přemýšlím proč si tak moc lidí z anglicky mluvících zemí neuvědomuje jak velká výhoda jim byla dána jen tak. Zajímalo by mně, kolik procent z těchto lidí mluví jiným jazykem alespoň do té míry, kterou očekávají od ostatních. Zkrátka vítám každou aktivitu, která vede ke sdílení znalostí a podpoře Participation Age

  Posted by: cesilko on July 28, 2006 at 07:13 AM

• When I hire someone, being fluent in (reading) English is a must-have.
  It's not only a matter of Java, but any computer language I've heard of (excluding brainf***, and similar "toy" languages) are English-based. if, while, etc (and even the infamous goto!) are English words.
  Also, whether you like it or not, English is the official language of the Internet. Google, reference documentation and "community" forums are almost completely dominated by English.
  Technical books are also mostly in English. By the time a (tool or technology, not theory) book is translated to Portuguese, the technology is almost obsolete.
  So my advice for not-fluent-in-English programmers is: don't take Java, XML, or <insert cool technology here> classes, learn English.
  Sorry, but if you don't want to learn English, then IT is not for you.
  BTW, I'm brazilian and proud of it.

  Posted by: dserodio on July 28, 2006 at 07:43 AM

• Excellent suggestion Michael... If we adopt Klingon-ese for Java now, then by the time we Earthers encounter starscruisers from the Klingon Empire (I believe this is expected to take place in the late 23rd century of this time line), we will be fluent in their language and avoid the misunderstandings that would have otherwise led to an interstellar war.-JohnR

  Posted by: johnreynolds on July 28, 2006 at 08:09 AM

• I'm estadounidense, but I lived a couple years in Guatemala and know Spanish fairly well. This is an interesting topic. Not sure what my own opinions are, but thanks for bringing it up. I appreciate reading different perspectives here.

  Posted by: tjpalmer on July 28, 2006 at 08:18 AM

• Hi kirillcool

  I've also spent several years studying English, but there is no way I think someone must know English to become a reasonable programmer. The main problem here is we desperately need good professionals and this language barrier is the main reason why it takes years to a talented young folk to turn into an average developer (not a senior one).
  The main inconsistency here is that if we think people should know English to become developers, why don't we make it official? Why letting a student spend 4, 5 or more years on computer science if they are not going to take an English course? So make it a requirement for entering college anywhere. Require a high TOEFL score or CPE.
  I do view this as an extreme measure, but at least it would be consistent. Now, if we aren't going to require people to master English from day one, we're just making them suffer as they start to love programming and can't make progress because of something we knew they would have to master but didn't require from them.
  When it comes to global knowledge, I believe local communities are the basis of the global Java community and strengthening them is what makes us all strong. So, if most developers in your country don't know English, the best way to make your community strong is to produce content in your native language.
  And about the enclave point, well, once you become a good developer and you feel English will give you new opportunities, you can learn it. The main issue is that currently you simply can't become a good developer without English knowledge and it takes usually years to become good enough and not everyone can afford it.

  Posted by: mister__m on July 28, 2006 at 08:37 AM

• Frankly speaking, I don't understand how it's happening that while we are trying to bring down the digital divide, somebody else could raise a language divide - because it's what you're doing if you don't provide young guys with strong motivations for learning English (Chinese / Spanish / whatever will be in 20 years).

  I'm from Italy, and at the secondary school I had good marks in English language, but I had a lot of difficulties in understanding an english speech and making myself understandable in an english speech. I've greatly improved myself up to a level in which I'm surely not an excellent english speaker, but people understands me at work and when I hold a speech at some conference. If I hadn't, I would just had to renounce to the most interesting (and well paid) projects I've done, since they happen to be always participated by people from all around the world. So if you accept that a young programmer gets lazy and never learns English, you're wiping off from his/her future most of the best chances to have a brilliant career.

  And in a world where only a few programmers spoke english, what could be the sort of opensource projects such as Linux, Apache, NetBeans and all the rest? Many would never be born; the others would be only a matter for American and English people, leaving most of Europe, South America, Africa and Asia out of the door.

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on July 28, 2006 at 08:42 AM

• Michael, this is a really interesting post. I think that almost nobody in Brazil remember a programming language called GOL(Gerador OnLine de Aplicações), and it was created on my born city Belém, and its semantic and sintax was completelly in portuguese, such as:

  se (cliente==masculino) entao
  oferta:= carro;
  se nao
  oferta := perfume
  fimse

  All comments I received about this language are really good, unfortunally is not easy find customers here using GOL. Furthermore I don't know how much it improved the number of developers due sintax was completelly in portuguese.

  In my point of view: Translate Java API is completelly insane, and Michael is not talking nothing about that. He's talking basically that a big number of not so experienced developers in Brazil will could have a real knowledge reading docs on their native languages. I know so many people in Brazil which have no idea how Threads, Mutex, even EJB or "basic" things such as Servlets and JSP due to simple fact of misunderstoods reading simple JavaDocs.

  Sorry by my mistakes in English, cauz in Brazil usually I write in Portuguese :D, I need at least two weeks in some country thinking in English to improve my writing.
  

  Posted by: edgars on July 28, 2006 at 08:48 AM

• Michael,
  If English isn't a requirement for entering college in Brazil, then it's a problem in Brazil's high education system. I heard that in India English is mandatory starting from when kids are 4 years old. Ever wonder why India is producing so many programmers that are able to work anywhere on the globe?
  Would you want code contributions to your project with internal comments and variable names written in Greek or Russian? Would you want to contribute to a project with internal comments and variable names written in Greek or Russian?
  Indeed the issue is that you can't become a good developer without English knowledge, and the solution is very simple. Instead of partying or hanging around with your friends, start learning English while you're in college. Sure, everybody will laugh at you, but if you want to succeed, that's a minuscule sacrifice to make.

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 28, 2006 at 08:49 AM

• Translating documentation is indeed a very good thing to do. I am very oposed against translating programming languages and API's though.

  When I learned my first programming languages (BASIC and Assembler), I was 13 years old, and didn't speak nor read English. Having teachers and books readily available in my native language helped a big deal.

  I don't know at what age kids start programming nowadays. But translating the JavaDocs into Portuguese or whatever their language is, will shurely help them a lot.

  Posted by: wrandelshofer on July 28, 2006 at 09:26 AM

• First, I, as a native English speaker, think translating basic reference material, the "normative" documentation that underpins the Java platform, is a great idea. Why? As I learned Japanese as a second language, I was forced to think much harder about the English I thought I knew so well.Carefully translating the core Java library documentation, the Java Language and Java Virtual Machine Specifications, and other fundamental documentation into a few other languages will uncover a lot of amiguities and imprecision in the original. If those are addressed, my English version will be much more useful.
  Also, @cesilko — I don't expect anyone to learn English. Non-English speakers can do whatever they please, including translating any public domain documentation they can lay their hands on for the benefit of their fellow countrymen. By the way, do Czechs realize how lucky they are to have Java provided to them for free?

  Posted by: erickson on July 28, 2006 at 09:40 AM

• When I first started uni in the US, our college's Multics mainframe ran the famous (infamous?) Pascal compiler from the University of Grenoble. While my native language is English, it was not too difficult for any of us to program in French.Ironically, French went on to become my second spoken language; but I think that was coincidence.John

  Posted by: cajo on July 28, 2006 at 12:52 PM

• Interestingly, python and ruby were both developed in non-English speaking countries but their reserved word are all English. What I think that is the most amazing thing is that some people use the idea of being "closer to English" as a selling point in some hype we have seen recently in IT. Do they even know the vast majority of people DON'T speak english? How could that be good? Would such geniuses want to englishfy math too?

  Posted by: thiagosc on July 28, 2006 at 02:22 PM

• vast majority of people DON'T speak english
  And yet Latin is the official language for medicine, zoology, botanics and what not. It would be very interesting to hear a budding doctor refuse to learn Latin just because it's not his native language. Just get over it and see it as a simple prerequisite. Do you object to the usage of greek letters in math?

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 28, 2006 at 02:25 PM

• Michael, I posted months ago this thread about the translation project and I know you already saw that and even commented about with some replies, but let me share it with everybody and allow people to see what I think about this subject. :)

  http://www.javafree.org/javabb/viewtopic.jbb?t=857061

  PS: yes, it's in pt_BR, so who doesn't speak our language, refer to Online translators like:
  - http://world.altavista.com/
  - http://fets3.freetranslation.com/?Url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.javafree.org%2Fjavabb%2Fviewtopic.jbb%3Ft%3D857061&Language=Portuguese%2FEnglish&Sequence=core
  

  Posted by: miojo on July 28, 2006 at 02:42 PM

• And yet Latin is the official language for medicine, zoology, botanics and what not. It would be very interesting to hear a budding doctor refuse to learn Latin just because it's not his native language. Just get over it and see it as a simple prerequisite. Do you object to the usage of greek letters in math?

  ??
  Please re-read my comment, I think you didn't understand it. I said englishfying something and selling it as "good" would be just as bad as englishfying math and selling it as "good".

  Math symbols are good because they are universal. The same cannot be said of English. But coming from people that use body parts as a measure of distance I can't say I am surprised.

  BTW, Latin hasn't been a must of a language in science for a long time. I have read Schopenhauer complaining about the fact people didn't care that much about latin in one of his books, and that was what? 19th century. A convention of giving latin names to species is just that, a convention, it doesn't mean all doctors speak latin fluently as if it were their first language.

  Which is a shame, because EVERYONE should learn latin, not just doctors.
  

  Posted by: thiagosc on July 28, 2006 at 03:08 PM

• English in IT == Latin in natural sciences. Simple as that. If you want to share your knowledge, if you want to learn from the body of collected experience, if you want to understand and be understood, you simply need to know it. If you don't, you can still be a stellar programmer with more limited access to global resources. This is the current state of things. It may change in 15-20 years to Chinese / Japanese / Spanish or even Portuguese, but we're not there. And it will be a natural process that will not happen overnight. Currently, Brazilian Java developers do not have the critical (overpowering) mass to make this happen. And artificially speeding up this process (in perhaps a wrong direction) may leave this specific community astray from the global community. If you want to take this risk - it's your time, your money and your career.

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 28, 2006 at 04:39 PM

• But coming from people that use body parts as a measure of distance I can't say I am surprised. - that would be a jab towards UK and not towards the language. The word "meter" exists in English as well, so what's the point here? And how do you call the language that is used exclusively to:

  Speak at international conferences
  Write technical reports
  Speak to one another in mails and person to person

  Shall we call it "lingua franca" of IT? It may not be the universal in sense that it's not the native language of the majority of the professionals in the IT field, but it is universal in sense that the majority of the professionals in the IT field know it and use it to communicate with each other.
  

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 28, 2006 at 04:45 PM

• Ok, I see you are generalizing as much as you can to win the argument. I didn't say "talking English in international conferences is bad" or "writing papers in English is bad" what I said was exclusively related to programming.

  My examples ("body parts" and "math symbols") were of someone that ignores the fact that there's a world out there, and the world doesn't turn around him.

  As I understand a programming language is nothing more than symbols just like math, an "if" for a non english speaker is not the word "if" but a symbol that stands for condition and so on. Hipotethically if an hieroglyph were used as a convention, and people were used to that, the idea behind it would be the same.

  Usually english speakers seem to understand programming languages literally, as if it were a natural language instead of ideas behind symbols.

  As for the documentation I can't see a reason of why it can't be translated. Software, even software produced for other developers to use is a product like many others, and the products usually have their manuals translated if they are expected to be sold in some country. Is there any tool for internationalization of javadocs?

  Of course, you can say "who cares?", but then your competitor produces something like that and makes it easier for many people to use their product. So you know the rest of the story...

  Posted by: thiagosc on July 28, 2006 at 08:56 PM

• Now I started thinking. Would be translating the docs an advantage over the competition (other companies, open source, etc)? I think making it easier for starters would grab mindshare, then after that those people would be used to Java and addicted to it. Just think about the billions of people that don't speak english!

  So, it could be the very difference from losing ground to others gradually to having a constant influx of new developers because of the easy documentation.

  I just remembered that guy that translated the bible from latin to german, so everyone could understand it and interpret it as they wished. Don't you think that was good idea? Or should everyone learn latin to do it?

  Are there any internationalizable languages, whose keywords are interchangeable by any other symbol(s)? I started imagining hieroglyph-like language that could be exhibited for the user in english or in any other language, since its keywords or variable names had i18n data associated.

  Surely that last idea would be a waste of cpu resource, but would be a funny waste of cpu resource. haha.

  Posted by: thiagosc on July 28, 2006 at 09:26 PM

• "I don't know at what age kids start programming nowadays. But translating the JavaDocs into Portuguese or whatever their language is, will shurely help them a lot."

  "Translating documentation is indeed a very good thing to do. I am very oposed against translating programming languages and API's though"
  One without the other is useless. If they're too lazy or otherwise unwilling to learn English how will they understand APIs and keywords (let alone language constructs) based on English grammar and vocabulary well enough to be fluent in them?
  They'll have the hardest time remembering what each word means, rather than being able to think in English they have to think in their own language and then translate each word to English as they turn it into code.
  Such people will never be good coders, as they'll never understand the APIs and programming languages they use, they'll just learn some tricks like good monkeys can learn that saying "ook" when a green light flashes means they get a banana but saying "ook" when a red light flashes means they get a painful shock.
  

  Posted by: jwenting on July 28, 2006 at 11:36 PM

• "One without the other is useless. If they're too lazy or otherwise unwilling to learn English how will they understand APIs and keywords (let alone language constructs) based on English grammar and vocabulary well enough to be fluent in them?"

  Most programming languages are based on very simple grammars and use a very small number of keywords. So, it is much easier to learn their meaning and usage than to learn the grammar and words that is used by the documentation.

  IMO, being able to understand the meaning of the documentation helps a lot to understand the API's and keywords, whatever language they are based on.

  Eventually this will lead to a learning path. To begin with, one only needs to learn the programming language, all descriptive stuff (variable names and documentation) can be done in ones own language. At a later stage, one can move to a complete English
  programming and documentation style.

  Posted by: wrandelshofer on July 29, 2006 at 12:30 AM

• "I just remembered that guy that translated the bible from latin to german, so everyone could understand it and interpret it as they wished. Don't you think that was good idea? Or should everyone learn latin to do it?"

  Well, I think that this is just a wrong comparison. Your example is about i18n of the bible, which is read by "final customers", and here nobody is arguing against i18n for users. In facts users aren't technical guys, they could have not attended university or even high school, so it's clear that you must do everything to help them.

  Programmers are supposed to study, instead, and we're just telling that english language must be part of their curriculum.

  I'd only re-state that China is running an impressive growth of technological power and influence and this demonstrates that they are smart guys and have a smart educational system: guess what, they teach English at the university.

  I would like to stress another point that I've already talked about. Let's suppose that a very smart brasilian/indian/chinese community of non-english-speaking programmers develop a pretty cool opensource framework. Obviously they will code in portuguese/indian/chinese language (class, method and field names). How long do you think most of non-portuguese/indian/chinese potential users will take to move over it and select another tool written in english? Or do you think that those users will study portuguese/indian/chinese specifically for using that tool? Are you getting the paradox: we started this talking about preventing people from being forced to learn english and we are now at the point in which other people should learn a number of other languages...

  Posted by: fabriziogiudici on July 29, 2006 at 01:45 AM

• I think you didn't understand anything. Sorry. But you misinterpreted it entirely. Making it easier for beginners won't prevent them from learning english in the future, which will eventually happen, it will only make your platform/language more attractive to new people that don't know english.

  We are users too, you like it or not. WE ARE FINAL CUSTOMERS of a lot of things, IDEs, APIs, tools, computer hardware, OS, etc. The API is just another of the many tools we use.

  And once again, why this resistence in making people's lives easier? Things always follow the least resistence path, making Java more approachable will only result in greater mind share and might attract developers that otherwise would go to .Net or some opensource language

  About the "language constructs", hahaha. I told you, english speakers take programming languages too literaly. Those aren't "words", those are ideas. How can someone not learn the idea of "repetition loop", or of a "class", just because they don't know english? Just stop and think, this is ridiculous.

  The APIs follow patterns, WAY simpler than a natural languages, having the javadocs translated would definitely help to get a better understanding of how it works.

  This could be an advantage over the competition, but americans just don't see it.

  Posted by: thiagosc on July 29, 2006 at 08:17 AM

• BTW, you are just considering the "college student" factor. What about those people that learn programming PRIOR to college by themselves or through some course? How many 15 years olds non-native-speaker do you know that have a complete knowledge of english?

  That's very difficult to happen. I have seen even adults around 30 something struggling with english.

  Posted by: thiagosc on July 29, 2006 at 08:25 AM

• rather then translating api's i would beter move more focus to making translations maps for scripting available in mustang, maybe it is not much connected with this topic, but reading this discusion i found that idea, it would simplify enabling scripting in terms that anybody can then use our scripting futures, and write easy but useful scripts without knowin english (which is base for most programing languages)

  as from my experience, having special courses for english to learn programing is not neccesary, beter would be preparation of standard course/document for each language, explaining the base of english used in programing, and then during reading apis or manuals evrybody would get more and more knowlage in understunding english in technical meaning, wich is mostly neccessary to work as developer or other technical IT connected person.

  as few mentioned above we need one language for the world community, it helps a lot, when we get translated more and more, we would have situation (also described above) that some communities will live their separate live and wouldn't exchange knowlage with other communities, wich will made things done few times (frameworks and so on) wich will be in most of cases just waste of time, like inventing the weel once again, and the second part (of invented code) that could be realy usefull, we have similar situation in current english community, some are always inventing new ways to do somthing.

  from other post comparing latin in medicine to english in IT, its not as full comparable as we think, most important is that the time of new ideas growing in IT is very short, in one year we have completly new technology, and in medicine ? ofcourse in medicine they ale still finding new things, but the base is still the same, not as in IT. current situation in it is not comparable to anything, the growth is so fast and the knowlage is only used by community, not like bible used by a very biger percent of people.

  sorry for my english, its a lot beter in technical ;)

  Posted by: mpapis on July 29, 2006 at 01:25 PM

• "How many 15 years olds non-native-speaker do you know that have a complete knowledge of english? "
  They now teach English here to 4 year olds, by the time they're 15 many speak English better than most natives.
  As I said before, without knowing English just having translated documentation at your disposal isn't going to make you halfway proficient at using a programming language based on English semantics, run on a hardware platform based on those same semantics.
  Computers (and the programming languages designed to talk to them) are made in such a way that an understanding of English is fundamental to their proper programming. Even if the programming language keywords and APIs were translated as well, you'd still have the grammar which is based on English.
  I've seen translated programming languages, they were pretty much useless. It just felt wrong to write what amounted to English grammar with Dutch or German syntax.
  I've also had to work from translated documentation to programming languages. That was almost as bad. Poor translation (by people who either didn't know the first thing about what they were translating, didn't know the language they were translating to or from well enough, or both) is inevitable and destroys the required precision in programming language documentation. The only people who could realistically make such translations are people who have mastered every detail of the product they're translating the docs for AND are perfect in both the original and target languages. Such people are rare, and you'll find that among those the people willing to put in that effort are even rarer because most know full well that the effort is wasted.
  They'd sooner help teach their target audience English, it's a better solution. You don't need to be fluent at a language to start using it after all. Once the students get the basics down they can figure out a lot of the rest with the help of their teachers and some good dictionaries.
  Providing complete translations of everything just prevents that. You get the situation we now see in some countries where people claim to speak perfect English when in fact they don't speak it at all and are unwilling to learn it properly (because they honestly believe they are perfect), often becoming agressive when corrected.

  Posted by: jwenting on July 30, 2006 at 11:12 PM

• Jeroen, any specific countries in mind?

  Posted by: kirillcool on July 31, 2006 at 05:11 PM

• Have you ever considered a __neutral__ international language?
  If everyone learns Esperanto everyone would be on equal grounds. Noone would benefit from learning the dominant language from birth.
  Also, a constructed language is a lot easier and faster to learn than English, Latin, French, Spanish, etc. because there are fewer irregularities.
  The number of needed translations would be smaller and a lot of time and money could be saved.

  geocities.com/c_piron/

  Posted by: applebanana8 on August 15, 2006 at 09:57 AM

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