I like this book : )
Also happy women's day 💗

I can see why that's a good thing, but to be entirely fair, male pronouns are used when the gender is unknown, as a convention. Using female pronouns instead, implies that it's specifically talking about a female.

@j4cobgarby The convention of using male pronouns has changed, because, it isn't "fair" . "They" or "he/she" is the new convention.

@ceee I suppose that's reasonable, but both of those alternate ways sound clunky to me

@j4cobgarby you should not generalize what's fair and what isn't, based on your personal convince.

@ceee I know - I said it's a reasonable idea, but just gave my opinion

I've noticed books talking about programmers in "she" form. A bit weird considering the majority of male devs, but I like it. It's better than assuming all devs are male, like it used to be in ALL books.

About that little discussion you 2 have going: I can not get used to the habit in English to refer to babies and animals as "it". In all other languages I know of it's he or she. Even for most objects.

Happy women's day btw. 🌈

@FunkDelegate Thank you 💙

@FunkDelegate when I was writing a paper, my supervisor marked all the places where I wrote "he".
"Think about Lenna! The same paper will be rejected, if they use a male image"
Because the majority of audience are male, apparently female has clear advantage in this community

@j4cobgarby congrats on this reply being the first time I’ve seen anyone brosplain common knowledge on this app

I always use “they” I’ve never understood the use of particular pronoun unless it’s actually recounting a story about a given person.

It feels terribly forced when people go out of their way to use “she” instead of “he” for these things.

Anyway. Happy Women’s Day!

Pretty sure my Prof used this book for my operating systems class too

@beegC0de operating systems concepts by Galvin and other authors. The book is really good 👓

That’s nice to see. I think woman’s game is starting to pick up stronger every year. Any documentation with female connotations is good.

@ceee yup that's it. The multi tasking, threading, locks and semaphores sections are the best

@matsaki95 Given the amount of text that use masculine pronouns entirely, there is a long way before we flip inequality ☺.
Btw the book uses mixed pronouns,not just feminine ones.

@ceee both mixed pronouns and generic ones are good approaches.

So happy to see this ^^

Sorry, but I'll never refer to my job title as programmerin. I am a programmer, developer whatever.. my gender has nothing to do with the definition of the work I do. IMHO, at least from my experience the case in my country is: those who have problems with male forms and point out they are female programmers/cops etc.. are usually the ones who actually got their jobs just because of their gender & enforced gender equality or other 'services' they did.. 😏

@ceee sometimes it’s not a matter of assuming things based on what is or isn’t convenient on an individual basis. People just presume things.

On a separate note, isn’t a lack of generalization a generalization in itself? In other words, saying that you should always specify is a form of generalization. 😂

Is there also a men day? If not, that'd be unfair, right?

Towards clients I always write both genders, for myself just the male one. Solely because he is shorter than she and male shorter than female 😅

@linuxxx Lazy pig! 😅

@Root did you just assume his species? Pigs don’t take too kindly to that. 😂

jk jk

We're talking about developers, right? I thought the pronoun was "IT".

Okay I just want to say I agree with everyone saying it's a good idea to use female pronouns instead, BUT I think using male pronouns isn't showing male dominance, it's literally a feature of the English language - where languages have a neutral gender pronoun, we use "he"

@j4cobgarby THIS!

that’s what I meant when I used the word presumption. The basis on which the English language uses “he” when referring to abstract nouns, at least the way I see it, is probabilistic. We could very well use “she” but I would insist on consistency, as I would insist on consistency in any standard of doing things.

Maybe in the past, there was some enforcing of the male pronoun to somehow support dominance but I don’t see how. At this point, people just presume to use “he” because it’s always been used. It’s not because it’s right and not wrong or more correct instead of less correct.

It’s a similar thing for countries or nouns without a proper gender. We use “she” to refer to them in English.

@j4cobgarby not always, though:

"Has the mail carrier been by yet?"
> I don't know; I haven't seen them.

@Root okay sure, not always - I don't want to appear as someone who's against gender equality, I just think switching between male and female pronouns randomly is inconsistent

@j4cobgarby @Root proper syntax vs. semantics argument going on here. 😂

@j4cobgarby randomizing which pronouns examples use is a good thing. Consistency in such a case is synonymous with bias.

Using "they" every time would just sound weird which isn't good. Randomized pronouns avoids this as well as unintentional apparent bias. "He/she" also works well

@sunfishcc @Brolls I've read sth funny in the book "Ace the Programming Interview" by Edward Guiness (I recommend it to people looking for a new job btw).

"Don’t ever be tempted to dress in a provocative fashion. The same rules apply if you are female; a nice blouse and skirt (not a mini) or trousers. Dressing like a gigolo might score you short-term points with a certain class of interviewer, but think ahead to how you will be perceived once you land the job."

He writes don't dress like a gigolo, but I think he means don't dress like a slut 8)

@Root not if the actual language we speak says one of the pronouns is the default

@Pseudonymous tell that to the guy who thought it'd a good idea to omit switch cases from python

@j4cobgarby That's changing, though.

About the pronouns: in French there's no "it". For neutral (can be foreign) words, "he" is used instead. I guess sth similar is going on in English, where you want to use sth between "it" and "he or she". No downside to women at all, unless women would like to be associated with "it" 8)

I've taken a look at the book and it indeed looks fab! It pushes my lack of knowledge quite deep in my face... *starting to get used to that feeling*

Am I the only one who has taken on a weird habit of using "one" when talking about someone of unspecified gender? I know that is mostly used for definitions, bu as I am not native english, I think "they" sounds weird and "he/she" is just too clunky for me.

@Xonuss one does not simply walk into Mordorrrr. ;)

You can also use “oneself.”

One wants to win what's won 😁

PSA: not trying to be a dick here.

I personally uphold the rules of the language, as long as those haven't changed, I'm not going out of my way to change the (already all-inclusive) words such as "he", "his" and the like for unknown or unspecified gender.

It is derived from man, as in, the derived version of human.

Until the point where the sjw party and linguists and politicians make a fucking decision on what to do about this whole situation, and make it official, I'll just stick to my archaic writing style and guidelines.