
Brendan Eich (JS inventor, Mozilla CTO) on stage at dotJS in Paris, Dec 2nd - sylvinus
http://dotjs.eu/
======
tilsammans
Ah yes, the guy who donated $1000 to Proposition 8.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3793012](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3793012)

~~~
egeozcan
I think this may be relevant for the people who may want to attend. Why the
down-vote?

~~~
bolder88
In what possible way is it relevant? Why would it even be something anyone
attending would care about? The conference is about programming, not gayness.

Good on him for standing up for what he believes in, and putting his money
where his mouth is. If only more did the same.

~~~
nawitus
>Good on him for standing up for what he believes in, and putting his money
where his mouth is. If only more did the same.

I don't actually think it's good that people donate money on advancing
discriminatory policies, even if they believe in them.

~~~
bolder88
Is the word "waitress" discriminatory and sexist as well? Should we campaign
to get that word redefined so it includes men?

People who say yes to the above are the ones sapping all the fun and enjoyment
out of the world in the name of their crazy political correctness bullshit.

I don't think it's fruitful to get into such an argument here, so lets just
agree to disagree.

~~~
m0a0t0
Gay marriage and the word waitress.

One of them is a human rights issue, the other is a word for people with a
certain job and, like many other words for people who have a certain job,
changes depending on the gender of the person. This is a useful distinction
and is really just a matter of words, however denying gay people the right to
marry obviously is not.

~~~
bolder88
The majority of people against redefining the word marriage to include same
sex unions, aren't against it because they want to deny anyone any rights.

    
    
      Waitress - a woman who waits on people
      Marriage - The union of one man and one woman
    

Either both words are sexist and discriminatory, or neither is, or you do not
accept the common meaning of the word 'marriage'.

As Stephen Fry said, give them all the same rights, just call it something
else. "Civil Union" or something.

~~~
m0a0t0
In my opinion having marriage and civil union is worse than waiter and
waitress. The former makes a civil union feel inferior - there is a weight to
the word marriage. I also see no problem with changing the definition of
marriage to include gay couples.

Are you suggesting Eich was dontating to stop the misuse of a word as opposed
to stopping gay people having equality?

~~~
bolder88
Why not change it to include interspecies marriage next? Man+sheep+frog. What
about inanimate objects! A man and a lamp? May as well allow people to marry
trees while we're at it.

I am suggesting that yes.

~~~
m0a0t0
Because lamps, for example, cannot give consent and have no concept of a
union/marriage/tax arrangement between two things. If you do not understand
this then you should have no part in this conversation.

Likening gay marriage to interspecies marriage is demeaning and offensive. I
would appreciate it if you would stop.

~~~
bolder88
demeaning and offensive? Don't you think animals or other possible future
species should have rights too? Shame on you.

"It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that", as if
that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning,
it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended
by that." Well, so fucking what?" \- Stephen Fry

I'm done here.

------
thejosh
Wow.

That is one packed conference with people who have created some powerful
software.

~~~
sylvinus
Thanks, that is what we strive for :)

------
sek
I would love to see some Dart discussion with Lars Bak.

------
bolder88
Why is he "inventor of..." and the others are just "creator of..."

Personally, I think using "inventor" when related to writing software is a
little over the top.

Still, not as irritating as when people call Crockford "inventor of JSON" I
guess...

~~~
sylvinus
I actually used the same wording as his official bio:
[https://blog.mozilla.org/press/bios/brendan-
eich/](https://blog.mozilla.org/press/bios/brendan-eich/)

I do agree that "inventor" is much stronger than "creator" but in the case of
something as huge as JavaScript itself, I think he deserves it :)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It's just plain wrong to use "invent" that way in English. He designed
JavaScript, he didn't "invent" it. Designing and inventing are two very
different activities.

You wouldn't invent a specific language, but maybe the concept of "programming
language" itself or specific language features. Lovelace invented the program,
Zuse invented he programming language, and someone invented classes (probably
Scandinavian) and first-order functions (probably a mathematician).

~~~
nimble
invent: create or design (something that has not existed before); be the
originator of.

So invent and design are near synonyms. There are subtle differences, of
course. For example, I don't think it would be right to accuse you of
designing the distinction you're making here. ;)

~~~
bolder88
Disagree.

You wouldn't say "Wow you invented a lovely picture of a house" to your kid
would you. They drew a picture. Just like a programmer writes a program.

~~~
_greim_
Incidentally, you also wouldn't say "you designed a lovely picture of a
house." So the parent's point stands.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Just because create and design are not synonyms doesn't make invent and create
synonyms. Invented can be used as a pretentious form of create I guess, but it
just makes the subject look like a tool. Edison invented the light bulb is ok,
there weren't any economically viable light bulbs before. Eich invented
JavaScript just makes Eich look bad though, there were plenty of PLs existing
before that Eich borrowed from in his design.

~~~
nimble
I agree with you that 'designed' is the word he probably ought to use and that
'invented' is pretentious, ... but I don't think it's wrong.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It is not black and white, just not the right shade of gray.

