Re: A system for localizing documentation strings

[Jean-Christophe Helary]

On 27 juil. 07, at 14:04, Richard Stallman wrote:

> Most programmers all around the world learn English, because most
> of what they want to read is written in English.
> I don't think that is likely to change any time soon.

I think you should take a look at book stores in any city outside the  
English speaking world.

There are enough books on any language to satisfy any programmer from  
beginner to engineer.

Even in the small town when I live in Japan you can find Paul  
Graham's books in Japanese. And more books on Lisp than in the small  
French town where I used to live.

I am amazed English programmers still believe their industry still  
revolves around their native language. This has not been the case for  
more than a decade: exactly when my small town bookstore stopped to  
sell the English versions of O'Reilly's books. Now most of them are  
translated. SUN's books are translated. Knuth's books are translated.

There is absolutely _no_ need whatsoever for Japanese people to learn  
_any_ bit of English to become excellent programmers.


Jean-Christophe Helary