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[NotAllThere]

I attended a "code review" for a library that we're supplying to an external customer. A group of published API functions had Celsius spelt Celcius!

"Do you realise that if we give them that library they're going to think find out we're a bunch of fcking cowboys!" Went down well on the code review form...

FTFY (bit of an open goal).

Having spent a very long 18 months of my life testing a public facing website produced by our non-English speaking colleagues, I can explain this in that there are so many 'issues' which cause orders to fail, each one resulting in a game of defect ping poing, blame, retesting, failing again before eventually shouting at someone, that something like a wording change just doesn't seem worth the expenditure of energy.

On the other hand, I had to build a website in Swiss-German - no doubt I had similarly garbled messages

The thing is, customers do notice these things and that can cause you to lose sales.

[northernladuk]

This from a London based business that does not sell chutney.

Radiator bleeding keys?

[Wanderer]

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I don't know what you are complaining about, it sounds like they are doing the needful with much cheapness and plenty quickness.

[DirtyDog]

I attended a "code review" for a library that we're supplying to an external customer. A group of published API functions had Celsius spelt Celcius!

"Do you realise that if we give them that library they're going to think we're a bunch of fcking cowboys!" Went down well on the code review form...

There's a section of standard Oracle code that I work with where the name is "oracel", but it can't be changed now because there are far too many clients who use that part.

[NickFitz]

I regularly use libraries from big companies such as Microsoft where colour has been spelled color!

Bunch of fcking cowboys.

When Netscape Navigator implemented support for X11 colour names, they ended up with all the shades of grey using the American spelling "gray" except for "lightgrey", which used the correct, British spelling. This was blamed on an English member of the development team

Interestingly, Internet Explorer 8 introduced support for the British version of all shades of grey, so Microsoft seem to be making some effort to address your concerns.

[craig1]

One merger I managed back in 2001 was more of a takeover than a merger by a UK based firm of a Germany based firm. One point of the merger agreement was that the German firm became an English language based firm on every item internally that MAY be seen by a non-German member of staff. The dev staff in Munich were not best pleased when told that all their work had to be done in English from that point on. It was quite amusing seeing the frothy mouthed rants of the German staff and IT management quickly slapped down by the German executive management team who told them to either shut up and do as they're told or go work elsewhere.

[VectraMan]

I attended a "code review" for a library that we're supplying to an external customer. A group of published API functions had Celsius spelt Celcius!

"Do you realise that if we give them that library they're going to think we're a bunch of fcking cowboys!" Went down well on the code review form...

I regularly use libraries from big companies such as Microsoft where colour has been spelled color!

Bunch of fcking cowboys.

[mudskipper]

Having spent a very long 18 months of my life testing a public facing website produced by our non-English speaking colleagues, I can explain this in that there are so many 'issues' which cause orders to fail, each one resulting in a game of defect ping poing, blame, retesting, failing again before eventually shouting at someone, that something like a wording change just doesn't seem worth the expenditure of energy.

On the other hand, I had to build a website in Swiss-German - no doubt I had similarly garbled messages

[Churchill]

That's what happens when you use automatic translators instead of using an actual person.

I attended a "code review" for a library that we're supplying to an external customer. A group of published API functions had Celsius spelt Celcius!

"Do you realise that if we give them that library they're going to think we're a bunch of fcking cowboys!" Went down well on the code review form...

[SueEllen]

That's what happens when you use automatic translators instead of using an actual person.

[Platypus]

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WTF?

Unbelievable, does nobody stop and think, "that makes us sound like a bunch of useless ****s" ?

This from a London based business that does not sell chutney.