This play on words is a pretty okay joke.
0xCAFEBABE isn't laugh-out-loud funny (not sure it ever was), but I find it a comforting reminder that Java was actually written by humans. The "Duke" mascot, too. It's not at all hard to imagine an underemployed middle manager learning about it and demanding it being changed, in fear that the Important and Serious people who would write Important and Serious software in Java would think it's not an Important and Serious language.
Or maybe I'm over-reacting. No idea.
No it’s not. It’s only claimed to be by the users for plausible deniability, which actually makes it extra-bad.
> Yes, you're overreacting.
No, they’re not. But the three people jumping out and screaming „overreacting” and „endearing” probably are panicking.
Just because some people adopted the word in some narrow context doesn’t change its meaning outside of it. There’s many behaviors that are common and acceptable towards your significant other and yet completely demeaning when applied to a barista (that doesn’t happen to be your significant other). So, whatever people call each other while watching Star Wars reruns is utterly irrelevant here.
It's also possible to use it in a belittling way, but I can't think of any synonym for "woman" which couldn't, if you use the right tone of voice. That's just general sexism, and the word "babe" wouldn't be worse than "lady" with the same delivery.
If you're talking about something that's not in those two categories, could you like me to it so I can see what you're talking about?
But yes, honey and sweetheart would work just as badly. And yes, there's quite a few words that are worse. But "hey, they could do worse!" is no real argument. Sure they could.
When actually used as a term of endearment, it doesn't; its pretty common in direct address as a term of endearment regardless of gender; in that use its not sexist at all.
When used as a noun in the third-person, rather than a name-substitute in direct address, though, its sexist, but its not a term of endearment, there, either.
CAFEBABE can be equally easily interpreted in either sense, so how it is perceived will largely reflect what the viewer is inclined toward seeing.
I would, however, argue that a "cafe babe" isn't endearing, or referring to young humans.
As Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary defines it:
1. a baby or small child.
2. an inexperienced or naive person.
3. Slang.
a. Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive. a girl or woman.
b. (sometimes cap.) an affectionate or familiar term of address.
Anyway you're right, it's probably an overreaction, I just don't think we should pretend like we suddenly don't know what the word "babe" means at the first sign of trouble.
If the http wg actually listened to PHK there would be some hope for it not to end up with the complicated garbage that it is now, but they don't.
I'd chose "having sense of humour" over "professional" every day.
> it's a sign that the people designing it did so with the seriousness it deserves.
Or it's a sign that the people designing it are too serious, focusing on political correctness and not on doing good engineering. Creativity, care about the product and sense of humour often go together.