Git's new guidelines for gender-neutral documentation | Hacker News Reader

Git's new guidelines for gender-neutral documentation

github.com

13 pointsazizsaya8 comments

LOL, to me, it reads like "Yes, yes, I know, we all would rather be writing code than debating pronouns. But since the debate will happen, whether you like it or not, here are some tips: (1) Just avoid pronouns altogether, then you don't have to debate anything. (2) In case it's not feasible ..."

Can't argue with that.

There is one thing missing from this list that works in some other languages as well: use plurals (groups of people). In general, the words that are used to describe groups are gender-neutral, even when the words to describe the members of the group are not.

Just a simple example. With "nurses" we use "they", "their", "them". With "nurse" you might use "she", "her" and "her", or for a male gender: "he", "his", "him".

So standard tech documentation stuff?

Much better for all mankind.

Heartwarming to see we're busy with the important things!

</sarcasm>

I'll just get back to my master branch just now kthx.

I'm genuinely curious to know why people get upset about this and what harm it does to them.

let's say the council comes to your house and ask you to hang a sock of different color everyday at your front door, and say "good morning" to the light pole, you know, random shit that means nothing to no one. Would you comply because there is no harm?

Now imagine it's not some random shit, maybe they ask you to go to the front door every morning and shout "Black lives matter", you know, something that sounds good but actually is still meaningless, for show only. In enforcing this they allocate the time of social workers who would otherwise do real work, into corresponding emails, knocking doors, doing inspecting work. I mean what's the harm? to you personally?

Let's go further, what if the council and their workers realize they can get good publicity and funding by keep adding for more slogans, for-show kind of "initiatives", and do no real work. Why not then just stop real work and bank on this pretend work stream?

But ultimately, what is the harm to YOU, personally?

Now I would really like to see documentation that's not gender neutral.

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