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Comment by benj111 | Hacker News Reader

Speaking as a Brit. I don't think we have the capacity to learn many times faster.

I suppose there is something in our culture. A lot of inventions and science has come out of the UK.

There's also an (I assume) cultural phenomenon of tinkering in the garden shed.

I suppose there's the Protestant work ethic, the ethic of self improvement, a general acceptance and perhaps celebration of odd balls and tinkerers.

It the field of computing, it probably helps that we speak the same language (ISH) as the us, where a lot of this tech came from, but didn't have the money to just buy solutions.

But I don't really have any experience of other cultures in this context to say whether these things are unique.

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> a general acceptance and perhaps celebration of odd balls and tinkerers

Paradise! (No, really, that is respectful and intelligent - if in general people can perceive that "the guy has something", that is already a big social asset.)

> other cultures

Other cultures may be quite diffident and promoting different "values" - in the streets you will more often find "socialites". At the extreme, a Siberian once told me: "They would go and beat up the different. «You are different», they would say, and beat you up".

Well I don't want to over egg our acceptance of 'different', there are certainly differences that aren't accepted, and certainly weren't in the past.

>It the field of computing, it probably helps that we speak the same language

Then again, I think working through untranslated English material for my computer hobby helped me gain language proficiency more quickly than many peers.

My first word in English had most probably been 'ready' ;)

True. But if I'm reading z80 documentation, I'm going to be able to read it more easily. Plus I don't have to be also willing to learn a second language.

Of course in the end you have computing skills and a second language.

Slightly off topic question though. Are programming constructs based around or influenced English making it easier to learn as an anglophone?

Would (true)if be more common, or do{}while(true) be more common if English weren't the Lingua Franca?

I know you could find examples of these in many languages, but they aren't 'standard'

I have wondered about that. Every time a new language or framework attempts or claims to be more natural, I think "for who?"

For me, as a kid back then it was the magazines. I would wait all month and then devour the latest Felix Denis publication end to end. The editors of these magazines could be considered the orchestrators of the UK 8 bit scene. Manuals were out of my financial reach.

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