RE: [Jython-users] jythonc not working -- solved, but strange

[Paul G. <pau...@so...>]

> If the people whose language(s) contain non-US-ASCII characters don't 
> want those characters allowed in identifiers, then I have no problem 
> with it. I just thought it seemed a bit elitist (from an american 
> perspective anyways) to only allow US-ASCII characters. -D 


... and I guarantee you that the rest of the world appreciates your 
attitude, as this is an area where we American have traditionally had a 
bad reputation. However the point is academic. In reality, English is 
generally accepted as a prerequisite to computer programming everywhere 
in the world. 10 years ago, when I first moved to Switzerland, I also 
thought as you do, but I learned that things are quite different.

The bulk of all literature in the IT field is written in English, and 
things move so fast that translation is useless - the information is 
outdated by the time the translation is available. The situation is 
self-fullfilling in that people who write in the IT field (books, 
articles, manuals) will often prefer to write in English, no matter what 
their native language is. Why make the effort to write in, for example,  
German have your potential audience limited to Central Europe, when you 
can write in English and have a worldwide audience? I have met 
developers from places as 'exotic' as Iran, and even there they have to 
be able to read english language software manuals.

Umlauts in identifiers? I think most programer would figure out pretty 
quickly that this is just asking for trouble - like putting spaces in 
file names. Smart people would avoid it even if it were allowed. 
Multi-national projects teams, like the one described by Oti,  are 
common in Europe (I dare  to  say even, that they are the rule) so it is 
common for coding standards to require all code, comments and docu to be 
in English  I am really glad to have been born with the right native 
language, even if does land me a lot of proofreading work on the side ;-).

So the point is,  IMHO, that internationalization is primarily for the 
benefit of the end-users of software products. It is a given that 
software developers can work in English. I have not yet met anyone who 
has a problem with this, and I do not see the situation changing in the 
foreseeable future.  

BTW, my company markets middleware products worldwide, and we only 
provide English documentation. No one has ever, to my knowledge,  
requested a translation.

-Paul