Sir, I unfortunately have to report you to the authorities.
Tech companies are more extreme.
When Guido van Rossum – inventor and original author of the Python programming language (in the past millenium) – joined Google in 2005 a couple of months after I did, I was a little surprised to see that he also, just like me, had to go through “Python readability”. For “readability” in any language officially allowed at Google you had to write a short (maybe couple hundred lines) program that got scrutinized, heavily dissected, critiqued, and eventually (hopefully) approved by a short list of “approvers” for that language.[P] The process could take months for some.
Guido passed. A little faster than me.
P Essentially, you had to demonstrate to be proficient in the language that you wanted to write code in that would be allowed to Google’s repository. Any code written by someone with readability would still go through peer review before you could submit it to the central repository.
Not sure how they do this nowadays where Gemini probably writes the majority of the code with the tools internally available.
I thought we were already going off-topic, but you’ve taken it even further ![]()
Sorry.
I have another anecdote … never mind. ![]()
Isn’t this just insane? Why weren’t they able to just put a checkbox there and move on?
Totally insane.
My personal explanation: given large enough systems and corporations, Brazil like rules emerge and establish themselves. Do you have form 27B-6?
I had not personally observed, but heard through the grapevine, that Ken Thompson, inventor of the B language (predecessor of the C language), co-author of C and major developer of Unix – all of this took place before I was born (and I’m old) --, was asked to go through readibility for C at Google, but apparently Rob Pike intervened as one of the few adults in the room.
And most of them are Italian citizen crossing the border everyday ![]()
Wikipedia sais italian is the main language of about 90% of the people in Ticino ?
Official statistics from BFS says 88%: Population résidante avec l'italien comme langue principale | Carte
I think at 99% some* here wanted to stir sh*t up with some stats.
* I did. I would not have gone trolling without the fake news beforehand though.
In Ticino “tücünes” is spoken. Sottoceneri and Sopraceneri versions. I used to live in Sopraceneri in my youth…
While often mistakenly called a dialect of Italian, the Ticinese dialects are a separate language group from standard Italian.
I was referring to Italian being spoken only in Ticino, i.e. about 10% of the Swiss population
But they do speak it in Ticino so why not speak it for the people who live there and want to get citizenship?
Language is really a local thing in Switzerland and we (I) don’t get the desire to live in a place where we don’t speak the language so that we work in a place where we do (or neither) while still pursuing citizenship, which is a fully optional long term commitment.
The multiple national languages thing isn’t “I can speak whatever language wherever”. It’s "depending on where I am, there’s one language that will be widely recognized while the others will be only slightly less wild shots than truly foreign languages bar English.
If you speak Oberwalliserdütsch in Martigny, we’ll serve you an official form to do whatever official thing it is that you need to do but you won’t be able to order a beer on your own because we won’t understand what you say.
Edit: to note, in certain areas, multiple languages could be deemed local as you’ll find big proportions of people speaking them fluently.
I currently live in SO, so I could learn the local language and feel well-adapted here. But if I take a 30-minute train ride, suddenly I wouldn’t be able to order a beer again. Close to where I live, you can even take a 10-minute bus ride, and the language will change.
Of course, learning the language is polite, helpful, and a sign of respect toward the community. I fully agree on this. However, I don’t believe that being fluent in the local cantonal language implies being well integrated.
I just came across a Reddit post that captures my idea of integration
https://www.reddit.com/r/expats/comments/1p820ni/im_an_indian_living_in_europe_and_i_wish_more_of/
Do you consider NOT speaking the local language a sign of not being well integrated?
To note, with integrated, I don’t mean having expat friends with whom you speak English.
If it was up to me, I would not allow to speak any foreign languages. FRench, DEutsch, ITalian, ENglish belong to their respective countries.
Just CHuisse/CHwizz.
See? That’s just so not-swiss.
(Seriously, official languages in CH should be represented with these country flags as long as swissness is involved, btw it’s an easy way to detect websites trying, not achieving, some integration).
I honestly also cannot quite follow.
What 10 minute bus ride in Solothurn takes you to a place where you cannot communicate in German? Or Swiss German? A 30 minute train ride doesn’t even take you to Neuchâtel (where you can still order a beer or “Bier”.
Not wanting to dunk on you, curiously interested what your thoughts are behind your explanation.
Even if you say “Bier” (or even “beer”) in a Swiss (or non-Swiss) French (only) speaking town, I’m pretty sure you’ll get some bière.
I’m of course a little biased, too, since I have seen many Google expats (and even acquaintances from other large tech companies in Zurich) refusing to learn even basic German (despite being offered free classes to learn the language, even for their spouses). I honestly never had much sympathy for them, even the ones that never pursued Swiss citizenship.
Perhaps your situation is more nuanced?
Ahah, guys, I’m learning German and after about a year of (non-continuous) courses I’ve reached around A1–A2 level. I want to learn it. Although I speak Italian, English and French, I feel it is polite to learn it. It is a sign of respect. Hence, I can order a beer everywhere (or so I think/hope).
My main point is that fluency in the local language doesn’t automatically mean someone is well integrated. So, for citizenship (in a multi-language country), I feel it shouldn’t be treated as a main requirement.
There is a handful of people that joined CH in 1979 which live very close to (Kt.) SO.
Many tend to forget about it, but Kt. Jura is real. ![]()
IMO, you’re arguing the edge case. You are of course right.
OTOH, if you compare correlate being integrated[i] with being able to speak the local language, the correlation is probably pretty high? If not close to 1.
i Modulo what “being integrated” means, of course. But that’s another entire can of worms. I’ll stick with language being the #1 factor/measure.
