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I would totally get Chinese code of which no one thought it would ever be used outside China. But German?! They are in the middle of Europe surrounded by the Tower of Babylon of languages. If they want to communicate with any non-German, they speak English. They should know better than to use anything else than English for names and comments in something targeting a western market.
That said: Yeah, of course they won't change it after the fact. I wouldn't either. And if they maintain it, it might actually be fine... -
@Oktokolo > "of course they won't change it after the fact."
Basically they told him we had the source code, change however we wanted, but it would void any support if there was a problem. You break, you fix.
He did try to translate, but gave up after finding most everything translated into boring code he didn't care about anyway (for loops, etc) Not exactly sure what he was expected, but I got a lot of enjoyment watching him waste his time.
Ironically, he is/was a brilliant guy, just would sometimes go diving into these rabbit holes to nowhere. -
@Oktokolo What other language should you use? English is sometimes just too limited to express something exactly. There are just too many things which no English word exist for.
Besides that, German is a very popular language in Europe, and in 4 of the 9 neighbouring German countries, German is one of the official languages. -
@happygimp0 English isn't too limited. It is a natural language like German and people probably do write similar software in English too.
But i get, that it might be hard (time consuming) to find exact translations and that such translations might not exist for local things (like local tax law stuff). But you can always do explanatory comments describing in plain english what a local word roughly stands for.
Most concepts and laws aren't only known in a single country of the world (there are exceptions, but if you aren't working for ASML or Zeiss, they don't matter).
And sure, if it is for the local market only or not to be maintained by foreigners, no problem with using the local language. At the end, it is all about maintainability - which aproaches zero for code you can't even read... -
@Oktokolo yeah, you can always leave a comment with a german translation for the very rare case when it’s needed.
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@Oktokolo Yes you can make it longer and use multiple sentences when a word can't be translated. But that makes it cumbersome.
Despite that, why should the other person learn English and not you learn German instead? -
@happygimp0 because it’s the universal language of development.
As a German guy, I say that anyone who uses German in code or documentation can go to hell!
You don’t want to learn English? You are not a developer. As simple as that. -
@Lensflare Ja das ist ein Problem der deutschen Mentalität: Kaum Patriotismus und sich lieber anpassen auch wenn das andere objektiv unterlegen* ist (ziemlich das Gegenteil von der US-Amerikanischen Mentalität).
*Was es in diesem Falle nicht ist. -
@happygimp0 🙄
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@happygimp0 It absolutely doesn’t matter which natural language is better. Just imagine what it would be like if everyone would code in their native language. It’s bullshit.
Patriotism is bullshit, too. No matter what country or language. -
@happygimp0 Well English is the western common language. It actually doesn't matter whether it is English or German or any other language. The point is that it has to be a language, that everybody knows. And English has become that language (even the Chinese learn it in school). As usual when it comes to industry standards for interoperability and communication, it isn't so much about having the best but about having the same one as everyone else.
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@happygimp0 get rekt dumbass
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@Oktokolo From my experience Germans are assholes when it comes to business language. Being in couple companies they always look for someone who knows German for their projects. They act like “if you want to do business with us then speak our language” bullshit
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@happygimp0 I'm curious what things you've found English to be too limited for
Worst code review experience?
Hard to pick just one, but most were in a big meeting room with 4+ other developers not related to the project and with some playing Monday-Morning-Quarterback instead of offering productive feedback.
In one code review, the department mgr reviewed the code from a third party component library.
<brings up the code on the big screen>
Mgr: "I can't read any of this, its a mix of English and something else."
Me: "Its German."
Mgr: "Then why is 'Button' in English? This code is a mess."
Me: "I'm not exactly sure how I should respond, I mean, I didn't write any of this code."
Mgr: "Yes, but you are using it, so it's fair game for a code review."
Me: "Its not really open source, but we can make requests if you found something that needs to be addressed."
Mgr: "Oh yes, all this...whatever this is..<pointing again to the German>"
Me: "I don't think they will change their code to English just so you can read it."
Mgr: "We paid good money, you bet your ass they'll change it!"
Me: "I think the components were like $30 for the unlimited license. They'll tell us to go to hell first. Is there something about my code you want to talk about?"
Mgr: "<Ugggh>...I guess not, I couldn't get past all that German. Why didn't we go with an American company? Hell, why didn't we just write these components ourselves!?"
Me: "Because you gave a directive that if we found components that saved us time, to put in a request, and you approved the request. The company is American, they probably outsourced or hired German developers. I don't know and not sure why we care."
Mgr: "Security! What if they are sending keystrokes back to their servers!"
Me: "Did you see any http or any network access?"
Mgr: "How could I? The code is in German!"
Monday-Morning-Quarterback1: "If it were me, I would have written the components myself and moved on"
Me: "No, I don't think you could for less than $30"
Monday-Morning-Quarterback2: "Meh...we get paid anyway. Just add the time to the estimate."
Mgr: "Exactly! Why do we even have developers who can't read this mess."
Me: "Oh good Lord! Did anyone review or even look at my code for this review!?"
<silence>
Mgr: "Oh...ok...I guess we're done here. Thanks everyone."
<everyone starts to leave>
Me: "Whoa!...wait a sec..am I supposed to do something?"
Mgr: "Get that company to write their code in English so we can read it. You have their number, call em'...no...wait...give me their number. You keep working, I'll take care of this personally"
In they nicest way possible, the company did tell him to go to hell.
rant
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