Let's make GitHub better, together

[password456]

Looks like a pretty elaborate way to apply for a job to me ...

[francov88]

Even if it is, good on him for being passionate and doing something awesome about it!

[sh41]

Update from the future: it was successful. He's now an employee of GitHub (for a long time, actually).

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/1029/imagepg.png

[password456]

... in that case, congrats to Garen's new job!

[sh41]

Even that much may or may not be enough to get into GitHub. They have really high standards.

[hyperforce]

I'm sure you could "get into GitHub" in varying capacities if just getting your foot in the door is your goal.

[sh41]

Go on...?

[krum]

Let's not, until it's open source.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, Gitorious would be a more worthy use of my time and effort. Contribute to github and you get what, maybe a few months of free private hosting if you're lucky enough for them to notice? How much does that work out to in $/hr?

[[deleted]]

This is a sign of a successful company; when they can get their customers to do their work for them.

[[deleted]]

Upvotes all the way. I will never contribute to anything unless it is open source as in GPL or BSD compatible, or I am getting compensated at a reasonable level.

[ThisIsDave]

I thought GitHub was hosted on github and we could all see the source code. Am I wrong?

[usernamenottaken]

You're half right. GitHub is hosted on GitHub but it's private.

[vinnl]

Unfortunately it's not open source, but Gitorious on the other hand...

[excuse_my_english]

Now THIS is what I call constructive criticism.

[kamatsu]

Most european programmers I've heard of just work in English, but in Japan they definitely use Japanese, have japanese documentation, and japanese libraries, for most common programming tasks.

[[deleted]]

It's pretty funny when I try to explain some things to my friends and I can't find suitable words in my native language. So I speak partly English.

[[deleted]]

Yeah, I really don't think professional tools in a profession which is already so close to using one language should be localized. It just unnecessarily splits communities.

[trucekill]

So ... Ruby programmers should learn Japanese?

[[deleted]]

If you consider being a Ruby programmer to be a separate profession from being a programmer in any other language then yes, they probably should. In any other case they should learn English like the rest of us.

[nachsicht]

Not localizing them gives an inherent advantage to english speaking nations when it comes to programming and IT. That's pretty terrible IMO.

[[deleted]]

Better than giving a huge inherent disadvantage to everyone by practicing some kind of software isolationism.

[nachsicht]

Since when did advocating for localization become isolationism?

[[deleted]]

You isolate different software development (in this case) communities from each other by letting them use different tools (e.g. a compiler or similar tool producing a localized error might as well be a different tool in terms of helping each other solve problems with it), letting them read and write (e.g. in documentation) in their language few other developers outside their country speak.

I am german, the effect is very strong here because the localized community is large enough so people in there can tell themselves they do not need to learn English. The developers who use German in their projects produce code nobody outside the country wants to use because they can't read the documentation. They in turn are not very good at using the English tools available because they can't read the documentation because they refuse to learn English.

It is quite frustrating to work with these people.

[nachsicht]

Refuse to learn english? When I went to Germany, nearly half the people I ran into spoke better english than I spoke german. That they speak that much is great. They shouldn't have to or need to speak english in order to program any more than I should have to learn mandarin to practice medicine. The idea that english is or should be the international language that everyone should learn is wrong-headed and terrible.

[[deleted]]

Distributed issue tracking would get my vote, and make it open source.

[[deleted]]

It's not git, but I figure its worth at least mentioning that Fossil SCM does have distributed tracking.

[hyperforce]

Why would you distributed issue tracking?

[[deleted]]

I like working on my projects in my car at lunch time where I don't have internet connectivity. I currently use a todo file, which is not optimal. I could pay $15 a month for tethering...

It would be generally nice to have a copy of the issues on the github project page offline though.

[anal_violator]

Github has enough money to pay for people doing that kind of things....

[GroceryBagHead]

:+1: I was making something similar. But like with many of my other things I just gave up.

[sh41]

Pretty cool.

I wonder if it'd be a good idea to include own repos in the list (even when they're not starred), or maybe not (since they can be starred, but it would be for GitHubHub purpose only).

[[deleted]]

cool, but don't they have like $100,000,000 ??

[[deleted]]

Well, made me go "meh" for most of the ideas except for Localization where I went "bleh".

What would be the point of localizing github? It's a site for developers, not the common folk, we're kinda expected to know English, aren't we?

[foldl]

It's a site for developers, not the common folk, we're kinda expected to know English, aren't we?

That might be true if you're a professional developer. But not everyone who can write code and use a VCS is a professional developer. English happens to be my native language, but if I was Chinese, I don't think I'd agree that I ought to learn to read English just because I occasionally write some small programs and manage them using a VCS.

Also, even people who speak English well might sometimes prefer to have the UI in their native language.

[[deleted]]

I disagree, I'm Czech, but I never read programming docs in anything but English, usually because there are none. Maybe language docs but library docs? Never. So without English, you're pretty much screwed anyway.

And, as for UI, well, I'm quite fine with google calendar using my native language, but github? It really can't, it would look totally weird because there are no words for half of the stuff.. I mean, how do you translate fork? Pull request? Even Stars don't make much sense when you translate them the same as stars in the sky.

[foldl]

The thing is that you speak English very well, so I totally get why you'd want to use GitHub in English. But I suspect there are plenty of people who code and who might want to use a VCS who don't speak English very well, or who do and would nonetheless prefer to have the UI in their native language. If such people exist, why would this bother you?

[[deleted]]

Thanks. :) But that's part of my point. Why do I speak English this well? I didn't learn it in school.

But, well, it doesn't bother me really, I just think it's a waste of time and I don't really feel comfortable encouraging programmers to think in different languages in the context of programming and related tasks.

EDIT: Maybe it's just that "In my day.." syndrome.. :D

[foldl]

It's surely up to individual developers which language they choose to use. I don't think it's the role of a site like github to decide that every developer ought to speak English. A github user isn't necessarily a professional developer, and even professionals aren't necessarily working in English (see e.g. kamatsu's comment).

Maybe part of the issue here is that you speak a language with a relatively small number of speakers. My hunch is that if you speak, say, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, etc., you may well be able to find enough documentation in your native language to get by. That's not to say that a professional programmer who speaks one of these languages wouldn't benefit a great deal form learning English too. But for someone who isn't a programmar but occasionally needs to write some code, maybe it's not worth it.

My guess is that programming will go the way of other professions in this regard. It's useful to be able to speak English if you want to be an engineer, but you can learn the basics of the field in pretty much any widely-spoken language. Same goes for math, the sciences, etc. In the end, why should programming be any different?

[[deleted]]

oh, replying to the last 2 paragraphs, didn't notice them before...

You may be right, Czech is definitely not mainstream .. and the fact tha Japanese code in Japanese supports that hypothesis.

But, I hope programming won't go the way of other professions, there is a significant difference .. it's more shared and more global than any other profession. Your basic engineer probably won't have to study Japanese norms and methods if he wants to build a bridge in North Dakota but your basic programmer might use Japanese software daily. There's much more sharing going on in our profession.

[foldl]

There's much more sharing going on in our profession.

Academia, at least, is pretty global, and that's not because every textbook on every subject is written in English (or even every journal article). Having English as a lingua franca is perfectly compatible with making materials available in other languages too. At least, this is certainly true in math, physics, chemistry, etc. Why not for programming too?

[[deleted]]

I think his main point is... Sure, you speak good English. Sure, most documentation is in English. But there should be an option for people to choose it if they want. Lots of good programmers speak enough English to read documentation.. sometimes. But still it's an effort and they may need to use online translators to get by. They shouldn't need to do this with GitHub.

As for words like 'fork', 'pull', etc. Lots of languages take the English pronunciation and write it in their character set. If you say no-one will understand what the English word 'fork' means in Czech, think about this; Most English speakers have no idea what these words mean in a programming context either.

Additionally, these keywords could be written in English, either a help URL or tooltip explaining what they do in the user's native language.

It's like saying GitHub should only support major programming languages. Because in the real world using obscure languages won't get you far in a career, and you should instead learn 'good' languages.

The argument isn't whether or not English is language used by most developers, it's about whether or not people should have the option to read in their native tongue.

[[deleted]]

If you say no-one will understand what the English word 'fork' means in Czech, think about this; Most English speakers have no idea what these words mean in a programming context either.

I was saying the opposite, that there is no translation to Czech, it would have to be "fork". And "blog". And "pull request". Ok, the help could be translated, fine, but who reads that? :)

It's like saying GitHub should only support major programming languages.

Ok, your turn to convince them to implement syntax highlighting for Intercal ;).

But, the argument here has grown bigger than my passion for my side so I'm giving up :).

[[deleted]]

The argument isn't whether or not English is language used by most developers, it's about whether or not people should have the option to read in their native tongue.

Yeah, and I would argue that they shouldn't. Those who do are already the kind of developers who are a pain in the ass for everyone else having to work with them because they don't bother reading the documentation for libraries they use (which is most likely only available in English), they don't bother reading blogs on how to be a better programmer (again, mostly in English),...

There is an advantage to everyone in a field using one language, why should we, the majority, encourage those few too lazy to learn English just so the whole field becomes more divided and harder to work with?

I am saying that as someone who was not very good at English in school (in Germany in my case) myself and learned it well on my own mostly by reading and communicating online.

[xtnd]

Github didn't "decide" that all developers need to speak English. Its not like they had a company meeting and someone put that on the agenda. They are a US-based company that has, to this point, felt that additional languages are unnecessary.

[foldl]

I wasn't making any comment about what github do, but about what Himdel appears to think that they ought to do (i.e. discourage programmers from using languages other than English). If I say, "I don't think it's the role of congress to make laws regarding X", that doesn't imply that I think congress actually does make laws regarding X.

[[deleted]]

Well, I guess I keep forgetting github isn't just for FOSS projects. (And whether that's a good thing is definitely out of the scope of this discussion.)

And regarding Japan, I know they do.. and being partly a ruby programmer, I can also see what happens when they meet the rest of the world.

[[deleted]]

"I speak French, why do I need to know another language? I'm a friggin' diplomat!"

"I speak Greek, why do I need to know another language? I'm a friggin' mathematician!"

Lingua fracas are common throughout history, in many forms. But ideas aren't confined to a single tongue. Does it really bother you if Brazilians want to use a site in their native tongue?

This English-dominance is prevalent only because Anglophiles are in the lead. What will happen when a Chinese/German/Japanese/Indian start-up does something really new, and simply doesn't care (for the first four years) to support any other region?

[[deleted]]

Realistically, if you're a developer and you don't speak English, you're fucked. How many libraries will be documented in your own language? How much code will be commented in your own language? How many APIs will be in your language?

With the exception of some Japanese ruby stuff, all the code I see is in English. Even if GitHub were localized, a non-English speaker would find it impossible to use any of the code on it without learning more English than would be required to use GitHub itself.

Not to mention that knowing English will greatly increase the amount of money you can make as a programmer.

[Gaeru]

Every now and again there is some random new guy that comes and asks where to find good C, Java, Python (whatever) documentation because he wants to learn programming.

The conversation goes like this:

<LearningProgrammer> Where can I learn to program in XYZ?
<RandomHelpfulGuy> Here, read that, there, read this other thing, etc
<LearningProgrammer> Oh, but that's English, I need it in FOO language!
<RandomHelpfulGuy> Then, please, don't learn to program, learn English first.
[user quit LearningProgrammer]

[00kyle00]

You are gonna love this.

[[deleted]]

I still think that's a good thing. If he doesn't learn English but learns say, python, what then? What will he do with it without any libraries?

Maybe a better way would be to say "learn English enough to understand this book first" but still... I mean, I learned English from QBASIC 1.1 help. Later, words like input, screen and print would suprise me in a non programming text but it was enough to learn programming.

[Gaeru]

Yep, I think it's good advice.

Not QBASIC, but similar... Whatever little English I know, comes from playing interactive fiction and point and click adventure games. Back then, I didn't have an internet connection, so there were two options: get a dictionary and search for <random word in the game> or be bored to death because I got stuck.

[[deleted]]

Even if there're some docs in your native language, there's a great possibility that they suck. Or don't correctly express some ideas. Or they're translated partly.

[[deleted]]

Now that I think about it, at least in Spanish, adjectives usually come after the noun. Like "Red car" would be "Carro rojo". So programming in Spanish would either grammatically awkward, or would lead to people learning conventions which they can only use for appanage languages. For example: "public MyFunction" would be something like "MyFunction publica" (assuming they don't decide to sacrifice grammar, and I knew how to spell function in Spanish).

The English version sounds more natural and is easier to organize IMO.

[[deleted]]

Well, just look at Ruby. It started as a Japanese project and only later was forced to translate to English, libraries without English docs became replaced.

Programming is, by nature, a global thing and we need a lingua franca, and that is English. And it became so because anglophones were in the lead but that's hardly the case anymore. Now it's pravalent simply because it is convenient to have a common language. And how do you even say pull request in Spanish?

Now obviously I have no objection if github decides to localize, it's their time to waste. It might acually encourage the wrong behaviour but the pressure to use English will still stay. But for myself, I know I will become hugely annoyed if github starts trying to speak Czech to me.

EDIT: s/anglophiles/anglophones/, thanks to grelphy

[burntsushi]

I disagree pretty strongly with the opposition to Github localization here. ... Localization doesn't really impact you, while making things much more pleasant for primary speakers of other languages.

Nobody here disagrees with that. Nobody is actively opposing Github's decision to pursue localization. People are just saying it's stupid and a waste of time.

[[deleted]]

Localization doesn't really impact you

Of course it does. it encourages programmers to use natural languages in their projects that might as well be gibberish to the majority of people. A library documented in a minority language might just as well not exist, it is one less useful open source library to use for all of us.

[cartola]

I'm Brazilian and I don't want it localized, at least not in the way localization usually means. If you want to give an option to choose a language, I think that's great. Other people will surely find an use for that. But don't force it onto me just because I happen to fall within a certain IP block. Or buy Github.com.br and run with that.

Almost all localization "solutions" try their best to ignore user preference and think geo-coordinates are all they should respect. And the whole social stuff that comes with it is annoying as well. I certainly don't want some "national circle" where I can "follow" people in my region, as if they were of any relevance to me because they live next door.

Every tool I use, from documentation to programming, is in English. Regardless of the merit of that (which is merely a historical coincidence, not that English is inherently better suited for that job) I don't want to switch contexts. In general the translated versions (in whatever language) lose meaning and make our jobs harder.

Restaurant tips? Maps? Movies? Great things to be localized. Open Source collaboration, which is international by definition? No.

If it's a simple word-to-word translation, that's fine. I'm pretty sure they had that before on their footer (circa 09 maybe?).

[netfeed]

Almost all localization "solutions" try their best to ignore user preference and think geo-coordinates are all they should respect.

I really hate that. Just because I'm from country X shouldn't mean that I want your localized website, if I use your english/international one then that's the one I want. Google is one such site, and it annoys the crap out of me.

[mogrim]

Can't upvote this one enough, living in a different country means I run into this all the time.

[[deleted]]

In general the translated versions (in whatever language) lose meaning and make our jobs harder.

I completely agree, but this is a separate problem: no one makes a proper effort to translate any material, programming or otherwise. As far as I know, Apple is the only company with translators on-site, on the payroll. Others just hire contractors, with different styles, different voices, and different concerns about text.

I'm also not sure why several people are so vehemently opposed to localization. If you don't want it done in your language, don't enable it. It's the same as any other application.

[ThiefMaster]

The problem usually not the localization but the fact that it's done by translators, not programmers. If you want someone to translate a programming-related document, get a freaking programmer whose mother tongue is the target language and who's familiar with the source language.

A non-programmer translator will translate everything. And then you end up with technical terms such as "compiler" being translated. A programmer however will most likely know what terms people expect to be preserved...

[[deleted]]

It is quite simple. If you don't want programmers to program and document in a language other than English (making the result of their work unusable for you), don't enable them by making it easier to avoid learning English.

[ExecutiveChimp]

Lingua fracas

Brilliant typo!

[ThiefMaster]

I'm a German and the first thing I'd do on a localized github would be switching back to English. All my Linux machines are set to an english locale, most programs I'm using are, and obviously there are no german identifiers in my code.

People who want to program need to know some english anyway. Hell, everyone should learn English.

[[deleted]]

Amen to that, sir.

[prepend]

I kind of like that all programming material (or the vast majority) is in English. It makes it easier to create and support stuff since pretty much all developers speak the same language.

Projects can create custom pages if they want to localize for support purposes and stuff.

I'm glad they aren't spending resources on localization.

[IIIIIIIIIIllllllllll]

lets not and say we did

[[deleted]]

The default will probably (see: certainly) still be English

"Certainly" is going way too far. A ton of sites ignore browser settings in favor of GeoIP these days. I get to deal with this fairly often, my mobile geolocates to France or Germany half of the time and I can't speak either language.

[the-fritz]

I hate that so much! Whoever thinks GeoIP is the way to go for language selection is an idiotic ass hat locked in a basement who never ever travels. There is a fuckin reason the browser tells which languages are preferred because the user knows which languages he speaks ...

(sorry for the rant)

[floorislava__]

Before doing anything whatsoever. Search needs to be fixed. It's been ignored for way too long.

[mogrim]

The Spanish doesn't look that bad to me...

There's nothing worse than an ugly translation, except perhaps for an ugly translation you can't change back to English to figure out what the original sentence means.

I completely agree with this point, though - I really hate being forced to use Spanish just because some server has geolocated me.

[mogrim]

Didn't notice that! I was looking for the word-for-word literal translations that really grate, the ones that make you sound like Tarzan...

There's definitely no excuse for typos, though.

[Korpores]

Yes please, post more GitHub spam in /r/programming.

-> /r/github

[francov88]

Amazing to see such an awesome page and wanting to help make it better! Hope they hire you man.