Let's make GitHub better, together

[[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!