20.3. Colonialism in Programming

Colonialism shows up in programming languages as well.

20.3.1. Programming in English

Most programming languages are based in English, and there are very few non-English programming languages, and those that exist are rarely used.

The reason few non-English programming languages exist is due to the network effect, which we mentioned last chapter. Once English became the standard language for programming, people who learn programming learn English (or enough to program with it). Attempts to create a non-English programming language face an uphill battle, since even those that know that language would still have to re-learn all their programming terms in the non-English language.

Now, since many people do speak other languages, you can often find comments, variable names, and even sometimes coding libraries which use non-English languages, but the core coding terms (e.g., for, if, etc.), are still almost always in English.

See also this academic paper: Non-Native English Speakers Learning Computer Programming: Barriers, Desires, and Design Opportunities

20.3.2. Programming Adoption Through Silicon Valley

The book Coding Places: Software Practice in a South American City by Dr. Yuri Takhteyev explores how programming in Brazil differs from programming in Silicon Valley. Dr. Takhteyev points out that since tech companies are centralized in Silicon Valley, this then means Silicon Valley determines which technologies (like programming languages or coding libraries) get adopted. He then compares this to how the art world works: “If you want to show [your art] in Chicago, you must move to New York. He then rewords this for tech:

if you want your software to be used widely in Brazil, you should write it in Silicon Valley.

We can see this happening in a study by StackOverflow. They found that some technologies which are gaining in popularity in Silicon Valley (Python and R), are not commonly used in poorer countries, whereas programming tech that is considered outdated in Silicon Valley (android and PHP), is much more popular in poorer countries.

In his book, Takhteyev tracks the history of the Lua programming language, which was invented in Brazil but became adopted in Silicon Valley. In order to gain popularity in Silicon Valley (and thus the rest of the world), the developers had to make difficult tradeoffs, no longer customizing it for the needs of their Brazilian users.