We've all seen this (if you work in a country where English is not your mother tongue). A new person joins your team, and starts talking to you about really deep, thought provoking, mind numbing technical stuff. The only problem is that you have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. Yes, they're speaking in your language, but they are not speaking the language.
The technical language of computing, and programming in particular, is English. It's not Hebrew, Spanish, or French. Try to convert the technical terms to your mother tongue and you get into bizarre, and I mean bizarre words that have no connection what so ever to the technical terms in question. In Hebrew it comes out horribly horribly bad.
A small example I'll give here:
“Class” - to Hebrew “Mahlaka” - to English back again would be... “platoon” or “division”
“string” to Hebrew “mahrozet” - to English would be “Necklace”
“Member” to Hebrew “eivar” - back to English would be “Organ” or “limb“
and so on....
That's why whenever I get to see someone fresh out of CS with no experience, I get into “translation mode” where I have to think about each word spoken twice; Think of it's meaning in Hebrew, then try (not always works!) translate back to English to get the real meaning.
SO, this sin is exceptionally bad because:
You speak a different language than everyone else. Too bad. Communication is key in a development environment.
Everyone will laugh at your funny words.
You will not understand anyone else!
Solution:
Insist on reading literature in English. You're gonna write in English anyway, might as well.. umm... learn it?
Whenever you hear a non English technical term, request the English meaning of it, and see if you can get the instructor to say the original term instead. If not, write it down and learn it on your own.
Always use the original terms when speaking with others.
“Infect” other people with this bug.
If you get annoyed with it, it means it's rubbing off on you. Good.
Notes:
This sin automatically extends the “Technical literature in Non-English” sin. They are two symbiotic entities. If you see one of them, you are likely to see the other, to some extent.
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