

Gendered pronouns in software: a quick primer - aaronpk
http://werd.io/2013/gendered-pronouns-in-software-a-quick-primer

======
paulhodge
Back in my English classes, _The Elements Of Style_ was our bible. It says
that singular-they is not correct, and that "he" is the correct pronoun for a
subject that could be of either gender.

So, if someone were to argue, "we should switch to singular-they because 'he'
is old-fashioned", then sure, I would totally be on board with that. Something
I didn't know until today, is that singular-they is actually a pretty old idea
with a lot of precedent.

But some people (like Joyent) seem to be saying, "anyone who uses 'he' instead
of 'they' is being sexist," which is just going totally overboard. Lots of
well-regarded style guidelines say the opposite, so quit with your witch-hunt
logic.

~~~
secstate
The Elements of Style has been systematically debunked a number of times.
White & Strunk frequently stated some crazy hard-and-fast rule and then broke
it in their own usage of English in the next chapter.

When you don't know the gender of the subject, don't use a gender-specific
pronoun. Done.

Now, should we refactor a code base to achieve this, that's a whole other
kettle of fish. I'd say, why not. It's not like sed is a difficult tool to
use. But to each _their_ own on that one.

------
eliteraspberrie
I was taught it was good grammar to use gender-neutral pronouns. On the other
hand, people who use open-source projects as platforms for their favourite
cause are annoying.

------
ceautery
"Sorry, not interested in trivial changes like that."

If you insist on that attitude, don't ask how to get more women in tech.

~~~
thescribe
Don't worry, no one is.

------
lolwutf
Dear everyone,

Get back to making world changing products that serve your customers and stop
spending time arguing about this stupid shit.

Sincerely,

lolwutf

~~~
DanBC
> world changing

You fail to spot the irony? Asking people to _consider_ 50% of the population
isn't world changing, but more fucking cat picture is?

------
omonra
Let's look at the numbers:

99% of open source developers are men
([http://people.cs.umass.edu/~wallach/talks/2011-04-05_JHU.pdf](http://people.cs.umass.edu/~wallach/talks/2011-04-05_JHU.pdf)).
It appears that women just seem to have better use of their time than writing
code for free :) (free seems to be the operative word - not use of gendered
pronouns in open-source vs commercial software world)

So let's mutilate english language (which is what referring to one user as
'they' really is - let's be honest) for the sake of some percentage of 1% (and
probably larger number of men who feel bad for these individuals) who are
unhappy to see a gender pronoun.

Now - I am not saying that one way is better than the other. I merely want to
frame the argument honestly.

~~~
jeffrom
yeah, let's not think about _why_ 1% of open source devs are women. this is
one of those ubiquitous cases in tech where "honesty" actually means
"misogyny."

~~~
omonra
I have a simpler explanation - women (and billions of other people who are not
involved in open source programming - including myself) have better use of
their time than write code for free.

I actuall think that explaining any group not doing some activity by 'group is
hated by people doing it' is just stupid. Minorities not into camping -
racism. Women not into working for free - misogyny, etc.

