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Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Subject: Re: Beginner question: performance problems with a simple program
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From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net>
Message-ID: <3218954908969001@naggum.net>
Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway
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Date: Wed, 02 Jan 2002 10:08:31 GMT
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* Duane Rettig <duane@franz.com>
| Well, as a native English speaker, I understand that English is an
| important language used in computer science, but for the very reason you
| cite I do not want to assume too much.

  Each field has only one common language.  Any attempt to add more will
  split the field.  It is already a problem that research published in
  French and German are unavailable to the rest of the computer science
  community.

| Whether non-native-English speakers (or more importantly, whether
| non-English speakers) accept English-only interfaces is going to be up to
| you/them.

  Fluency in English is a sine qua non in computer science.  Programmers
  who want translated software tools and programming languages in their
  native tongue will forever remain incompetent tinkerers.  Only one
  company on the planet thinks this is a good idea.

| And the acceptability of such English-only interfaces are likely to vary
| according to the audience; whether to the programmer or to the end-user.

  End-users should _obviously_ be served with natural language interfaces.
  I do not see how what I have said could be construed to have been arguing
  against natural-language end-user interfaces.  Quite the contrary, I have
  made several points about how software that needs to talk to real users
  must be tailor-made in each language.  How could this possibly be taken
  to mean that we should _not_ make natural-language interfaces for users?

///
--