It was a December 03, 2015. Finally, after more than a year of waiting Swift is now opensource. Curious and motivated by the idea of discovering this new language, I went to the official swift.org website. Baaaammmm !!! Big rant: all the documentation is in English. No French version in sight...
Somewhat frustrated with the situation, I still managed to get Swift running on my machine. At this precise moment I realized the need to speak or at least understand the language of Shakespeare for a developer.
Why should the English language be part of the developer's artillery?
Good question but not easy to answer. In a single sentence I would say: “The higher your level of English, the more serene and advantaged you will be”
If I had to classify the English level of a developer, I would say that there are 3 levels:
level 1: reading only: you know how to read and understand English: this is already a good thing. Almost all the online documentation is in English, it will be a bit complicated for you to implement an API whose doc is entirely in English if you are Anglophobic :)
level 2: reading and writing only: you know how to interact at least in writing. It's also a big step: you can contribute to opensource projects on github. In case of problem, you can even ask for help on stackoverflow, isn't that good? :)
level 3: reading, writing, speaking, listening: at this stage you are ready to conquer the world. Negotiating with an English-speaking client? it's up to you. Watch the Apple keynote live? you are part of it.
To the apprentice-developers, or to those who are already, you are already code warriors, I have no doubt about it. You master good practices and everything that goes with it, I'm sure. Just always try to improve in English, it will help you in the future.
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