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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.
Appeal to tradition bias
So is singular 'they'.
The rest of your post is just a slippery slope argument.
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.
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.