GB English, or US English?

api naming-conventions api-design
izb picture izb · Oct 1, 2008 · Viewed 11.8k times · Source

If you have an API, and you are a UK-based developer with a highly international audience, should your API be 

setColour()

or

setColor()

(To take one word as a simple example.)

UK-based engineers are often quite defensive about their 'correct' spellings but it could be argued that US spelling is more 'standard' in the international market.

I guess the question is does it matter? Do developers in other locales struggle with GB spelling, or is it normally quite apparent what things mean?

Should it all be US-English?

Answer

Chris picture Chris · Oct 1, 2008

I would tend to use US-English as that has become the norm in other APIs. Speaking as an English programmer, I don't have any problem using "color", for example.

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