this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
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It does seem to me that complaining about gendered language in source code is about as stupid as a moral panic over daemons in systemd, or vulgarities in source code comments. There is some place for it... but not much
On top of that, 'he'/etc has been effectively gender ambivalent for a long time. I understand the desire to change that, but it's still a normal thing in English language. Similar to 'master' in git repositories and IDE connections, though those are both much more recent and arguably referencing much worse.
If a dev insists on 'she' everywhere, or 'they' in places that read awkwardly, should we flame and blame? In fact, why not go and convince Firefox to use exclusively feminine language in their source, to balance things out. It sounds more sensible than taking up a political fight over this!
Also while you're at it, ethical hacking is now done only by natural-human-skin-colour-hat hackers; background process on your computer are called abstract beings; your computer does not boot[strap], ('pull itself up by its bootstraps'), it has affirmative action from the motherboard to get it started; and when I saw the article headline, I thought the issue would be bigger ... that's what they said.
This reads eerily close to reverse-ism. Please don't do that.
I'm afraid I don't know what you mean.
Your last two paragraphs, especially the last one, feel eerily close to reverse-ism.
"Reverse-ism" usually refers to "reverse discrimination". It's a big trope in far-right circles and ties directly to the "Great replacement" theory.
It's unclear what your intentions were when you said this but it felt weird.
The last paragraph was just facetious, to make the point that correcting potentially-discriminating terms can be overdone.
And the previous, also a bit tongue in cheek, but since I'm contending that it's petty to fight over the Ladybird dev's use of 'he' as default pronoun, I was essentially supporting other options as a sort of faux balance. If 'he' were truly inappropriate here, balancing it with 'she' in another project wouldn't make it okay again. But if it's just not that big of a deal, except for a dominant bias, then adding diversity elsewhere perhaps settles things a bit, and allows those who feel marginalized to asset themselves.
Neither is a solid answer! If you don't agree with me that the bickering over that source code is overblown, fair enough, you can disagree. But I think my point stands.
By calling reverse discrimination a far-right trope, I presume you mean complaints about reverse discrimination? Or an argument that reverse discrimination solves the problem? (Though I thought that latter was more argued by the Left, under the term 'positive discrimination'.)
Either way I don't think that's what I meant.
Right, I might've been more confused with your previous to last paragraph because using she/her pronoun as 'default' was and is a genuine feminist practice in French where gender neutrality is more difficult.
Anyhow, I would recommend not arguing your points like that - it just kinda smells like bad faith argumentation.
Yes, that would be correct. It's the basis of the Great replacement theory.
Hey, this isn't me.
Appeal to tradition bias
So is singular 'they'.
The rest of your post is just a slippery slope argument.
Appeal to tradition bias?
Yes. Turns out languages work by saying things the same way somebody else said them before.
My point isn't that there can't be a reason to change. My point is calling 'he' out as implying misogyny on the part of the author is ridiculous, and fussing over changing it is, in this situation, in my opinion, petty.
Indeed. Some English contexts are used to defaulting to 'he' for ungendered animate; some to 'they'. Neither necessitates an egregious humanitarian wrong.
I did get facetious toward the end. If you like, you don't have to build your life philosophy on the foundation of the logical integrity of my closing paragraph. Up to you.
Your entire comment is argument from fallacy. Lol
I thought they gave a pretty good rebuttal in regards to the singular 'they'. Just because they mentioned a fallacy in the begging doesn't mean it's an argument from fallacy.