How are the chinese coding?

Question

Do they code in Latin?
Do they have their own programming language?

I'm just curious.

Answer 1

I maintain the Korean IME (Input Method Editor) for Microsoft Windows and Office. Thus I work with Korean devs on a daily basis, Japanese devs regularly, and Chinese devs occasionally. We all code in C/C++.

I am most familiar with the code for the Korean IME. There are a few places with comments in Korean script (Hangul) where it is absolutely necessary, but even most comments are in English.

This may be because we are an international company, so we all need to communicate in a common language. Even emails are usually sent in English. However, when I verbally speak with my Korean co-workers, it's almost always in Korean.

Although C/C++ reserved words are also "English" words, they have their own very specific meaning and end up becoming part of a language that isn't even really "English," per se.

edit: Incidentally, I was just listening to the stackoverflow podcast (#29, I think) where a similar question came up. Joel said the scripting language in Excel was localizable (reserved words changed to the local language.)

Answer 2

To answer the exact questions asked: For the most part, they code in "English" (that is, they code in the exact same version of the programming languages used in the U.S., with English-based keywords and so on). However, there are some programming languages that cater to Chinese to varying degrees. As one commenter mentioned, ChinesePython is one.

However, I think there is more to the endeavor of programming than just producing source code. For the perspective of someone who has lived in Shanghai for years and worked with programmers there during that time, I think this blog article is an extremely good one.

For further references on Stack Overflow, not necessarily about Chinese in particular:

• Do there exist any compilers with localized versions of programming languages?
• Truly multi-lingual programming languages?
• Coding in Other (Spoken) Languages
• Do you use another language instead of English? [deleted]
• Should identifiers and comments be always in English or in the native language of the application and developers [deleted]

(The deleted posts are not visible to users with less than 10000 rep.)

Also, on Software Engineering SE (formerly Programmers SE):

• Do people in non-English-speaking countries code in English?