A Tokyo trip report [LWN.net]

A Tokyo trip report

Posted Jul 19, 2007 18:02 UTC (Thu) by elanthis (guest, #6227)
In reply to: A Tokyo trip report by pcampe
Parent article: A Tokyo trip report

It has less to do with not caring about other languages, and more just to do with practicality. If I am doing work in English, either I need to learn your language so you can help or you can learn my English so you can help. Guess which one I'll choose?

The same goes in reverse. There are a LOT of really cool things going on in non-English-speaking countries that I'm interested in, but it's not their job to convert all their stuff to English so I can participate. It's my job to learn their language. If I don't think it's worth the effort, then that's my choice, and my loss.

I wasn't saying that everything should be done in English, just that people shouldn't whine about how it's unfair that people in non-English-speaking countries have difficulty functioning in a largely English-speaking community of software development. If a translation of the documentation isn't available, and you want to participate... learn English. Yeah, that's really darn hard (learning any new language is hard), but that's just how reality is - it's in English, learn it or you don't get to use it. Simple.

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A Tokyo trip report

Posted Jul 20, 2007 0:02 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

just that people shouldn't whine about how it's unfair

Well in this article, at least, nobody's whining about unfairness. The whining is about the loss of the work the non-English speakers could do if not for the English lanuage barrier.

And it really is just whining, by the way. (Or, if you think that has negative connotations, it's pointing out a problem, not advocating a solution). I don't see anyone seriously suggesting a way to breach that language barrier that doesn't cost more than it would gain.