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> I think English is so dominant language in IT that each > developer should have at least basic knowledge of English > necessary to wrote identifiers/comments in English. ... > It is probably much more difficult to learn English > if you have to learn new script first. I've worked with developers in Japan, and in Spain, who had enough English to read quite complex specifications, but not enough to write coherent sentences. I can well understand this problem because my French is at a similar level - I had to read and sign a complex contract in French a couple of years ago, which was slow work but not impossible; but I needed help to write the letter accompanying my acceptance of the contract. So I don't think script is the major issue, it's simply a question of the level of fluency in the language; and reading requires far less fluency than writing. There are some countries - Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia - where the level of English teaching and usage is such that most professionals have an excellent grasp of the language. There are other countries, and I would count Japan and Spain among them, where this is not the case. I don't think it has anything to do with how hard it is for different nationalities to learn the language, it's purely the amount of teaching and practice that people get in the course of their education and professional life. One unfortunate consequence is that the rest of the world is often unaware of the quality of the work being done in those countries. I do think that in today's IT world, programmers without good English are operating at a serious disadvantage (just as mathematicians without good German or archaeologists without good French would have been at a disadvantage in the 19th century). I'm sure many of them are reading this list, but are not confident enough to join the discussions. However much we feel this is unfair, it is a fact of life. And I agree that if source code is to stand much chance in the open-source world, it is going to have to be commented in English. Michael Kay http://www.saxonica.com/
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