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Comment by camus2 | Hacker News Reader

There is some obvious "activism" behind such list, mixing valid technical specifications, politics, opinions and gender theory. But I guess it is a political correctness guide for people who believe in a specific political line, also a way to shame publicly those who do not by using that list as an argument of authority.

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You're downvoted, but I agree that the e.g. women-in-tech one -- while worthwhile to be aware of -- does not fit the general "falsehoods programmers believe" theme/meme. The meme refers to assumptions that lead to technically-inaccurate programs.

IOW, there's a difference between "everyone has two names, so you can assume that schema for a database" vs "all women in tech are designers". The latter is false, but it's not a programming error. The stuff on this list [1] does not fit the pattern of programming errors.

https://gist.github.com/Su-Shee/5d1a417fa9de19c15477

You seem to imply that there is a non-political, non-activistic way of doing it. How would that work?

Because from where I'm standing, if you e.g. implement gender as binary, you're not being more objective, you're just supporting the opposite side of the people you perceive as activistic.

Which is exactly the point: it's not a falsehood it's a contention. Listing your political beliefs as truisms without explanation isn't just lazy, it's annoying.

They should at least put a warning when it's opinion and not fact. Programmers with a limited world view may end up following these instructions - putting themselves at risk for taking a stance on sensitive cultural and political issues.

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