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