Re: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages

On 08/04/2024 09:47, Muttley@dastardlyhq.com wrote:

On Sun, 07 Apr 2024 06:04:16 -0400
Alan Bawden <alan@csail.mit.edu> wrote:

If acknowledging the existence of female developers makes you
uncomfortable, you're just going to have to learn to deal with that
yourself.  I'm not going to adjust my language to cater to your
insecurities.

 If my insecurities you mean acknowledging reality then fine. The thing about
people like you is (and I don't believe the 50% thing, sorry) is that you
would never use a male pronoun if talking about nurses or pre school teachers
who are heavily biased towards women.
 

What makes you so sure about that?  Are you assuming that because /you/ are sexist, everyone else is?
It is a fact that some professions have a heavy gender bias.  Yes, most programmers are male, and most nurses are female.  It is even reasonable to say that for some tasks there are statistically relevant biological differences that justify a bias (in the same way that you can say men are, on average, taller than women, even though some women are taller than some men).
But is it a good thing that there is such gender bias?  Usually not - it is usually best to have a mix in all practical ways (genders, race, nationality, age, etc.).
Being inclusive in the language used is not likely to make a big dent in attracting people from poorly represented groups in a particular field - but using non-inclusive language does make a difference in chasing away those that venture in.  Worst of all is people like you who actively say that women programmers are so abnormal we should ignore the possibility of their existence!
Some people write "he/she".  Some people alternate gender pronouns, or pick randomly.  Some people use "they", or try to avoid using pronouns at all in their wording.  These are all fine.  It is also entirely understandable that some people just write "he" because they don't think about it at all.  But I can't understand the mentality of someone who actively tries to work against inclusive language.  We are not talking about some kind of quota system that you might feel is unfair, or even requiring you to change /your/ language - we are talking about someone who used "she" in reference to "a normal programmer", and that has got you throwing a fit.
And for the record, I would use he/she/they for nurses or pre-school teachers if I did not know the gender of the individual.