[dahart]

> If it is in someone else's dialect, they can feel free to say it, but my experience is that it is rare.

Agreed. And this is the reason why use of 'else' in programming languages might not have had to be invented, right?

[josephg]

No. The article goes into great detail on this - if-else as a construct took a lot of iterations to finally appear in its current form. That fact is largely independent of how natural the word 'else' feels. If we used 'otherwise' instead of 'else', the control flow construct still wouldn't have been obvious.

[dahart]

Yes it is clear that the control flow construct was invented in this form, and that programming languages evolved. It’s still true that this use of “else” paralleled use of “else” in English, and that it’s appearance in programming languages, while interesting, is not a “mystery” or a misuse of language that was “invented” by German programmers.