"She" is becoming such a gimmick now.
Anyway, on topic: we also feel the same way about Angular. Having our APIs abstracted from the beginning into services/factories means we just throw code into a new directive or controller and boom: instant functionality that doesn't cost us a million hours.
This is definitely bad for readability, the user, and all that. Please, anyone reading this who complains about line-heights and font-sizes, pay attention to grammar as well.
It's just awkward, please stop with the forced gender equality if that's what that is. If it's just being playful then I guess you can shrug it off.
"The developer refuses. She’s worked too hard on Feature X, and dammit, you’ll have to pry it from her cold dead hands!!!"
With the exception of the unnecessary extra !! I don't see what is wrong with the grammer, it's clear in this context that "she" is the developer.
What kind of BS magic thinking is that?
If you want to inspire women, teach them about the technology as girls and encourage those who like to work with it.
Pronouns ain't where it's at.
Edit: Oh, and language has a massive effect on our thinking patterns, so yeah, you actual could possibly make the case that pronouns matter. They don't to me, at all, and if they "don't" to you, why express frustration or call it "BS"?
There is no loss of clarity in writing whether your hypothetical developer is a "he" , "she" or any other pronoun. It is certainly preferable to clumsily using "they".
"Common sense is the most widely shared commodity in the world, for every man is convinced that he is well supplied with it." -- Rene Decartes
That works, if you were educated before 1960: "The use of he to refer to a person of unknown gender was prescribed by manuals of style and school textbooks from the early 18th century until around the 1960s" [1]
The thing is, you have read, most of your life, seeing male pronouns. I was a young teenage girl when I realised this and it made me feel left out, like I'd never be relevant. Acknowledging half the population is a good start - I like those programming books for example where Alice and Bob are equally represented.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-neut...