I wouldn't say all the Rust community is toxic. Then again, I'm not sure which Rust community he's referring to, I'm sure there are some toxic ones out there.
It would have taken two seconds to be like "+1 Good catch man, merged."
Obviously using the pronoun "it" at some point became offensive, so is highly not recommended. But, (probably after having drilled into my head repeatedly that "they" is a plural) it seems very incorrect to my ears when "they" is used to describe a singular person. It also unfortunately comes with ambiguity sometimes. I've had misunderstandings where I used they as a singular pronoun to describe someone of unknown gender, and the person I was talking to took it as a reference to a plural, which at best creates confusion, at worst misleads.
Language is an incredibly hard problem, and it certainly doesn't help that as youth, we are drilled with supposedly objective truth regarding language, when in reality it is far less defined and more nebulous than than the teachers would have us believe. The generational gaps can already be tricky to navigate. Having different ideas of objective truth, especially regarding language, certainly does not help.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.h...
(and even singular "themselves"!)
which puts to rest approximately every argument I've ever seen against it.
And tbh using gender in pronouns is artificially annoying, and it's good to see English has a way out of it, like it got rid of giving genders to common objects like most European languages (“Non, it's La chaise, chair is feminine in French” -_-').
(You seem perfectly happy distinguishing between animate/inanimate nouns and choosing "it" or "he/she/they" -- that's a difference not all languages make, but should we get rid of it in English too?)
The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it. — Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
But he [Jesus] said to them, "It is I; do not be afraid." — John 6:20
2. gender distinction is artificial because it's not based on anything real, rather it's based on whether the "vibes" that a person (or an inanimate object in European languages) that you're referring to gives off are more feminine or more masculine. this "redundancy" creates all sorts of trouble for folks who are not comfortable with the "vibes" society assignes them with a particular gender at a given moment. the problem here is not that the speech is lossy, but that this particular "feature" of language demands that you convey the person's identity when it's almost always irrelevant in a way that's exclusive to gender (thank God nationalism wasn't invented when the language was forming)
In my read of the Bible quote, it's not really referring to a person as "it" in the same way.
2. Grammatical gender has nothing to do with the "vibes" of an inanimate object - it's quite arbitrary, really. The problem you're associating here is much more with gender in humans, but we were talking about the grammatical construct applied to objects (like a chair as the grandparent mentioned).
So, as far as I understand it, gender pronouns are typically for referring to individuals. This means that whether to call a baby, or animal, by gender pronouns or object pronouns varies depending on the expectation.
('gender pronouns' includes singular they/them, which is a 'gender pronoun' in the way that it perhaps, if you will, implies the 'gender' of 'neuter'...)
I guess a generally understood term for this would be "humanization", although as someone who identifies non-human that still sounds somewhat exclusive, but regardless, that is what I generally observe to be the difference.
So, it's possible to refer to a baby or an animal as an object, if, in doing so, you intend not to assign that object any individuality; in other words, if you're referring to it in a non-individualistic way.
e.g. "I needed to change its diaper again today" ("dehumanizing"; I guess shows a lack of empathy, but not everyone necessarily feels empathy for the baby before it is more markedly an individual)
It's also possible to refer to a non-individual (such as an inanimate object) as an individual, which, in doing so, typically implies that the non-individual nonetheless has some sort of individuality or that you're specifically assigning it such.
e.g. referring to ships / other vehicles using 'she'; also, giving everyday objects individuality is a relatively common part of Japanese culture (which is part of why Apple's recent "Crush!" ad upset so many)
Typically, it's respectful to refer to people as individuals because they are. It is "dehumanizing" to suggest otherwise. (seriously, is there a better word for this?)
Some prefer to be referred to as objects instead, though; I know at least one like this. But those will typically specify it in some way, and it's rude not to refer to any one as an individual unless otherwise specified.
as someone with DID (formerly called Multiple Personality Disorder) this is actually kind of a nice bonus. (though people still often use he/him pronouns to refer to specifically me, which is fine)
This is literally the kind of toxic divisiveness he’s talking about. Can’t you see how this makes people want to have nothing to do with this issue?
I've never seen anything like a bigoted word attributed to Andreas, by all appearences he is one of the most caring people in open source, and his character is obviously a big part of Serenity's success in attracting followers and contributers. But he does seem to be very insistent on "having nothing to do with the issue" (of inclusivity). His stated goal is to make a welcoming and inclusive environment, and ultimately I just think letting Pixie Ada put pride flags in xer bio will be more succesful at that than a don't ask, don't tell policy that seems mostly geared to not bother people who happen to fit in by default.
So the use of he/she is banned by those projects?
I definitely do not think he was leading by example here. Making assumptions aabout why people do PRs and denying them based on those is a good way to create a toxic community.
Huh? Nothing in a software project will ever be perfect – code or docs — so this doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation. It's always a process of gradual improvement, and that can be true for a change like this too.
> so following that logic all wells would be easily poisoned
All camps are easily poisoned. What's important is how each community deals with the toxicity and whether they consider it acceptable or not. Rust's community has generally accepted this rabid part of it and tacitly accepted their behavior.