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Thanks for that. To all female programmers - I meant no offense. On a related note, when are we getting genderless pronouns for English?

by svs 12y ago

herghost 12y ago
I wouldn't sweat it. Anyone offended at this needs to recalibrate their outrage-o-meter.
- adwf 12y ago
  Can't say this enough. Someone tries to make a funny little poem about variable naming and someone else tries to derail it into a debate about gender. Skewed priorities there I think!
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
thret 12y ago
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-she1.htm http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-she1.htm 'he' was already genderless. 'She' was introduced to signify female, and 'he' become masculine by comparison. Perhaps in introducing 'she' we should have introduced something like 'ghe' for male, then we could keep 'he' as undefined, and everyone would be happy.
- philh 12y ago
  That's not quite what it says. It says that there was a time (1200 years ago, in a different language) when he existed with heo, which was female; and then heo morphed to he; and then she was introduced. It doesn't specify whether he was originally masculine or ambiguous.
  - thret 12y ago
    Yes, but it does specify that 'he' was used for both male and female at the time 'she' was introduced in Middle English.
aagdbl 12y ago
"It"? For programmers you could also use "id".
phorese 12y ago
------------------------------------------------------ Did I ever tell you that Programmer McCave Had twenty-three variables and named them all `a` Well, the programmer did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do. You see, when the programmer wants to add `a` to 2 The programmer doesn't get a number oh no no no All twenty-three `a`s cause a buffer overflow This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves' As you can imagine, with so many `a`s. And often the programmer wishes that, while coding, The programmer hadn't ignored that sense of foreboding And called one of them runCount, And one of them lastNum And one of them allSales and another roundSum And one of them lastId, and another userNames And one subnetMask, or numStartedGames Any old names would actually do even if they were just `bar` or `foo` And adding hyphens or humble underscores The programmer could have come up with so many more! Like read_app_config_from_this_file_name But no, the programmer went and called them all the same If only the programmer hadn't given into the hype And used a language strongly typed The programmer would have avoided this horrible fate But didn't and so now it's too late. ------------------------------------------------------ There, FTFY. People will still think the programmer is a male, but now it's their own damn bias at fault :)
philh 12y ago
> On a related note, when are we getting genderless pronouns for English? When enough people start using them despite occasionally annoying other people. :) (I'm a fan of ve/ver/vis for someone of unknown/nonbinary gender, but in a case like this I would have just picked he or she and to hell with anyone who complains.)
- octo_t 12y ago
  they. Its grammatically and syntactically valid. "Where's Mark.... Oh there they are"
- juliangregorian 12y ago
  In concept it's great, the problem is that when one says e.g. "ve had 23 variables" I for one tend to read it as a bad German/Russian impression.

Thanks for that. To all female programmers - I meant no offense. On a related note, when are we getting genderless pronouns for English?

by svs 12y ago

Thanks for that. To all female programmers - I meant no offense. On a related note, when are we getting genderless pronouns for English?

herghost 12y ago

I wouldn't sweat it. Anyone offended at this needs to recalibrate their outrage-o-meter.

adwf 12y ago
Can't say this enough. Someone tries to make a funny little poem about variable naming and someone else tries to derail it into a debate about gender. Skewed priorities there I think!

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

thret 12y ago

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-she1.htm http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-she1.htm 'he' was already genderless. 'She' was introduced to signify female, and 'he' become masculine by comparison. Perhaps in introducing 'she' we should have introduced something like 'ghe' for male, then we could keep 'he' as undefined, and everyone would be happy.

philh 12y ago
That's not quite what it says. It says that there was a time (1200 years ago, in a different language) when he existed with heo, which was female; and then heo morphed to he; and then she was introduced. It doesn't specify whether he was originally masculine or ambiguous.
- thret 12y ago
  Yes, but it does specify that 'he' was used for both male and female at the time 'she' was introduced in Middle English.

aagdbl 12y ago

"It"? For programmers you could also use "id".

phorese 12y ago

------------------------------------------------------ Did I ever tell you that Programmer McCave Had twenty-three variables and named them all `a` Well, the programmer did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do. You see, when the programmer wants to add `a` to 2 The programmer doesn't get a number oh no no no All twenty-three `a`s cause a buffer overflow This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves' As you can imagine, with so many `a`s. And often the programmer wishes that, while coding, The programmer hadn't ignored that sense of foreboding And called one of them runCount, And one of them lastNum And one of them allSales and another roundSum And one of them lastId, and another userNames And one subnetMask, or numStartedGames Any old names would actually do even if they were just `bar` or `foo` And adding hyphens or humble underscores The programmer could have come up with so many more! Like read_app_config_from_this_file_name But no, the programmer went and called them all the same If only the programmer hadn't given into the hype And used a language strongly typed The programmer would have avoided this horrible fate But didn't and so now it's too late. ------------------------------------------------------ There, FTFY. People will still think the programmer is a male, but now it's their own damn bias at fault :)

philh 12y ago

> On a related note, when are we getting genderless pronouns for English? When enough people start using them despite occasionally annoying other people. :) (I'm a fan of ve/ver/vis for someone of unknown/nonbinary gender, but in a case like this I would have just picked he or she and to hell with anyone who complains.)

octo_t 12y ago
they. Its grammatically and syntactically valid. "Where's Mark.... Oh there they are"
juliangregorian 12y ago
In concept it's great, the problem is that when one says e.g. "ve had 23 variables" I for one tend to read it as a bad German/Russian impression.