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Comment by waiseristy | Hacker News Reader

Being able to write 30 lines of semi syntactically correct code isn’t enough to offshore nearly anyone

Indeed. That said, the fact it is (almost) language agnostic means you can do ridiculous things like this:

Schreibe mir bitte ein Python script, dass 50% "I don't understand" oder andere 50% "I need a cup of tea" (nicht überserzt, nur auf English!) drucken. Alle Code Comments muss auf Hindi sein. Deine erklärung auser die Code muss ins französische schreiben sein.

~~~

```

  # यहाँ हम शून्य से शुरुआत करते हैं
  
  import random
  
  # हम एक सूची में दो विकल्प डालेंगे
  
  options = ["I don't understand", "I need a cup of tea"]
  
  # हम 50% के लिए एक नंबर उत्पन्न करेंगे
  
  random_number = random.random()
  
  # यदि नंबर 0.5 से कम है, तो हम पहला विकल्प छापेंगे
  
  # अन्यथा हम दूसरा विकल्प छापेंगे
  
  if random_number < 0.5:
      print("I don't understand")
  else:
      print("I need a cup of tea")
  
  # यह स्क्रिप्ट आपको 50% की संभावना से "I don't understand" और अन्य 50% की संभावना से "I need a cup of tea" छापेगा।
  
  # रैंडम संख्याओं का उपयोग करने के लिए हमने random मॉड्यूल का उपयोग किया है।

```

Voici un script Python qui imprimera 50% "I don't understand" et 50% "I need a cup of tea". Nous avons utilisé le module random pour générer un nombre aléatoire et imprimer une option en fonction de ce nombre. Les commentaires sont en hindi.

~~~~

(I know that code is trivial, that's not the point; I'm wondering how many requirements get lost in translation, both between languages and between jargon domains)

I don't know about Francophone countries, but in India business discussions are conducted in English, not Hindi.

Also:

> # यहाँ हम शून्य से शुरुआत करते हैं

"Here we start from zero"

> import random

but then it imports a module from the standard library

Human language use, even US-UK is full of similar issues. The point is not a claim of AGI (I think neither the G nor the I is boolean, so don't find much value in the term) this is more of "hey, this is somewhat useful in this kind of situation".

FWIW, I also don't know about Francophone countries; sadly, despite the language lessons being mandatory for 5 years of my schooling, my grasp of it is so bad that even had to have my "I don't speak French" corrected.

In France business is typically conducted in French (maybe with the exception of some international companies).

Situation certainly varies from one francophone country to the other. Most of them are in Africa, where probably most people also speak other languages as mother toungue. At least for small businesses, I doubt English is the lingua franca.

> Schreibe mir bitte ein Python script, dass 50% "I don't understand" oder andere 50% "I need a cup of tea" (nicht überserzt, nur auf English!) drucken. Alle Code Comments muss auf Hindi sein. Deine erklärung auser die Code muss ins französische schreiben sein.

Lemme guess: you generated that prompt by writing it in English and asking GPT (or Google translate, but not DeepL) for a German translation?

Nein, aber ich bin mir klar, dass mein Deutsch ist… leider nicht ganz flußig.

^_^;

(I assume "not DeepL" weil meine Übersetzung hat eine Irre, dass DeepL macht nicht?)

Wrap it in a 'tech lead' loop that will keep asking for fixes until the resulting code compiles, and you can replace a good chunk of outsourcing.

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