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I have always wondered how programming languages are different, if they are indeed different, to other parts of the world? How do people in parts of Asia/Europe/South America use programming? Whats the syntax like? Any examples?

Anthony Forloney
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    Related: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/202723/coding-in-other-spoken-languages and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/440052/should-identifiers-and-comments-be-always-in-english-or-in-the-native-language-of and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/250824/do-you-use-another-language-instead-of-english and http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1653227/how-hard-would-it-be-to-translate-a-programming-language-to-another-human-languag – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Nov 05 '09 at 23:42
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    In general, no, they don't differ. A programming language is a language. It doesn't differ from country to country any more than Spanish or Japanese does. A C++ programmer writes in C++ regardless of where he lives. He doesn't write in Swedish or German or Mexian. – jalf Nov 06 '09 at 00:06
  • +1.. ok, feeling better now thanks – Dead account Jan 26 '10 at 16:58
  • It's a general principle that you can write comments in most other languages. – David R Tribble May 18 '10 at 02:08

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There are indeed a small number of non-English programming languages. They do not enjoy widespread use. In programming in particular, and slightly less with technology in general, English seems to be the language of choice. I think this is likely due to the Internet originating in the US.

rmeador
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    You know, when you look at it, most of the history of computing takes place in either the US or Britain, even going back to Charles Babbage. IBM started with an invention meant to help the US census. The US and Britain both worked on computers to crack German encryptions in WW II. UNIX was developed in New Jersey. And of course, many of the modern day computing giants are located in Silicon Valley. – BernzSed Nov 05 '09 at 23:58
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Here in Sweden (Northern Europe) I guess it's pretty much the same as in the USA. Java, python, ruby, C#, C++, perl are all quite popular. Functional languages as Lisp and Erlang (actually a language invented here in Sweden, and quite good for distributed stuff) are less common, but not all that uncommon.

Rasmus Kaj
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Basically we all have to learn English :)

Hector Minaya
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I used to make comments and variable/method names in spanish, then a teacher told me to write in english, despite my native language, if i wanted my code to be any worth, it had to be in english, for its the one language the whole programming community (or a really big majority) knows

Arcantos
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The good thing of programming languages is that they are almost universal (excluding some unicode support related things :D ).

I think that everywhere they're just the same, same syntax and same behaviour.. IT is based on standards, programming languages are not excluded!

Jack
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  • thats very interesting! I remember way back when I had my hands on some code from another country and I can't remember where I put it, but this question cross my mind so i figured id ask – Anthony Forloney Nov 05 '09 at 23:35
  • probably variables name were different, or class names, but the syntax is always the same.. of course it's possible to reinvent a language just translating keyword in other languages but why do you need to do it? English is so concise.. – Jack Nov 05 '09 at 23:43
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I m pretty sure that you can find people who write C/C++ , java , C# code everywhere since almost all universities teach those language , the only difference is the naming of variables and functions (or methods) usualy they are named based on the native language of the developer

Hannoun Yassir
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The only thing that differs is what people name their variables, and what locale settings they use.

Kaleb Brasee
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