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On banning racial terms in programming

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Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#11

Post by SamReidHughes »

nickmooney wrote: post #6

It's not about intention. Nobody believes that the words "master" and "slave" are intended to cause racial stress in a technical context -- but that's not the point. The point is that these words do not exist in a vacuum, and for many people words like "master" and "slave" do in fact evoke historically-grounded feelings of discomfort, even when that isn't the intent. When someone says "hey, I feel hurt when you use t…

No, those people want to feel important and express control over you. It's morally wrong to accommodate such behavior.

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#12

Post by reversecs »

methodover wrote: post #7

This is a fucking awful blog post. Just because you aren’t offended by it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be changed. That’s an awful argument. It’s trivial to avoid these racially charged words when programming. So just do it. Like, if a subordinate at work came to me and was like, “I wish we could do X, it would make me feel better about working here,” and X is some trivial thing, it kind of doesn’t matter what it is. It…

I don't know, I can see why words which have absolutely no intent of being racist are associated with racism. Is it any more offensive than calling a node with no parent (which is going to be garbage collected) an orphan node? Or using 'kill' to end a process or (to be ridiculous) separating things by "Class", and calling things equal (instead of different or not different)

Intent is everything and giving into pressure like this just reinforces consideration of every word you speak or write and in what possible dimension it can be deemed offensive. In your life you can contort your language and behavior to please everybody but at some point you are no longer behaving for yourself but for everyone else. You have to pretend like you want to speak different pronouns, you have to pretend that calling someone black is much more offensive than calling them African American. You have to make sure that you specifically don't interrupt women, you have to double check (and counter) your implicit bias towards women and minorities when you think they didn't do a good job in the interview.

Some of these things are hyperbole and some of them are not. I know the standard response is that I'm over exaggerating but its par for the course to get diversity training, to have quarterly updates on how more women are being hired! (as if the company were actually eliminating discrimination instead of just bumping numbers up). This is all new and its moving faster and faster.

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#13

Post by drewrv »

> Many places are named after famous slaves that successfully fleed their master.

This is great for La Réunion, but many places in the US are named for slaveholders, or even generals who fought to preserve institutionalized slavery. There are monuments to these monsters all over and people still proudly display their traitorous flag. We're touchy about this subject for good reason.

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#14

Post by cats87651 »

methodover wrote: post #7

This is a fucking awful blog post. Just because you aren’t offended by it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be changed. That’s an awful argument. It’s trivial to avoid these racially charged words when programming. So just do it. Like, if a subordinate at work came to me and was like, “I wish we could do X, it would make me feel better about working here,” and X is some trivial thing, it kind of doesn’t matter what it is. It…

Would you stop using the word “fucking”? Do you think anyone is offended by it? Probably not since it’s so pervasive. In this case when you immediately use it to dismiss what the other side is saying it can alienate others from learning and changing their perspective.

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#15

Post by nate_meurer »

hannasanarion wrote: post #9
mikestew wrote: post #2

I think the money quote is "By banning those words, you’re giving them the meaning you don’t want them to have." When I use "master/slave", it's not because I'm an insensitive asshole, it's because it has a distinct, technical meaning that has nothing to do with the topic you might think it does. And thus it comes down to, "I have chosen for that word to have this particular meaning (and only that meaning), which I f…

> And thus it comes down to, "I have chosen for that word to have this particular meaning (and only that meaning), which I find offensive, therefore please don't use it anymore.", knowing full well that the speaker meant no offense when they were discussing the new drive layout. I'm not completely unsympathetic, but I sometimes feel the sympathy only goes one way. No, it's the other way around. Engineers did not inve…

But ass and bitch are not a good comparison to phrases such as master/slave, which have a rich history in programming and convey meaning that would be difficult to replace. Master/slave tells me that an entity controls another entity unconditionally. This is a critical aspect of the relevant relationship, and I know of no other phrase that conveys this meaning nearly so well. Obviously we use the same words to describe a similar relationship between human slaves and masters. There's no rational reason to forbid technically useful and precise language, just because it also describes something else that we don't like.

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#16

Post by nate_meurer »

methodover wrote: post #7

This is a fucking awful blog post. Just because you aren’t offended by it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be changed. That’s an awful argument. It’s trivial to avoid these racially charged words when programming. So just do it. Like, if a subordinate at work came to me and was like, “I wish we could do X, it would make me feel better about working here,” and X is some trivial thing, it kind of doesn’t matter what it is. It…

Please don't. Down this path madness lies.

I understand that it seems easy to accommodate this one simple request, because that's just the one that article discusses. However the folks who really push this nonsense won't stop at program code, and they won't stop at racial sensitivity. Be prepared to scrub all of your user documentation, design documents, and marketing material as well. Be prepared to accommodate the charismatic christians who take offense to references to daemons and 666 file access permissions (I personally know such people). Be prepared to accommodate such sensitive (and politically powerful) individuals as Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price, who will publicly label you a racist if you utter the phrase "black hole", in either a scientific context or to describe an inefficient process [1]. Be prepared to police office communication to minimize gendered language; phrases such as "man-hours" and "you guys" are often used as examples of sexist language. On and on.

1 - https://www.npr.org/sections/newsandviews/2008/07/is_black_h...

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#17

Post by delian66 »

camgunz wrote: post #8
mikestew wrote: post #2

I think the money quote is "By banning those words, you’re giving them the meaning you don’t want them to have." When I use "master/slave", it's not because I'm an insensitive asshole, it's because it has a distinct, technical meaning that has nothing to do with the topic you might think it does. And thus it comes down to, "I have chosen for that word to have this particular meaning (and only that meaning), which I f…

Software engineering is undergoing a (nother) cultural change. More people than ever before are engineers and are participating in its culture, bringing their own perspectives and experiences with them. Consequently, a lot more people are weighing in on what is and isn't acceptable. This is good! Diversity breeds strength, and while it can be tumultuous it's always worth it. Language changes too. There are all kinds…

So where does this "cultural" change end?

Do you want to have control over not only the used terms, but even the thought constructs that they represent?

Most peoples throughout history have been enslaved at one time or another. Most peoples have waged war on one another, most of them brutal and prolonged. A small percentage do criminal acts even in peace time. Do you want to ban/replace terms like war, battle, kill also?

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#18

Post by delian66 »

nickmooney wrote: post #6

It's not about intention. Nobody believes that the words "master" and "slave" are intended to cause racial stress in a technical context -- but that's not the point. The point is that these words do not exist in a vacuum, and for many people words like "master" and "slave" do in fact evoke historically-grounded feelings of discomfort, even when that isn't the intent. When someone says "hey, I feel hurt when you use t…

>>for many people words like "master" and "slave" do in fact evoke historically-grounded feelings of discomfort, even when that isn't the intent

So what? Most peoples (all?) in history have been enslaved at one time or another. Some people are right now!

I understand that it is easier to protest against word usage in freaking source files/documentation, in a field where most people are very agreeable and soft and want to accomodate everyone, even to their own detriment, than to protest against real existing problems, but come on ...

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#19

Post by delian66 »

throwaway5250 wrote: post #3

We're actually accumulating quite a list of these "stop" words. I can think of dozens off of the top of my head, many of which don't seem obviously problematic, but could easily get a person fired if used in the wrong context. It'd be nice to have a curated list. In theory, both pro- and anti-PC folks ought to agree on that.

The usage of the word "problematic" is very high on my list of trigger words... Followed closely by "toxic".

Re: On banning racial terms in programming

#20

Post by delian66 »

methodover wrote: post #7

This is a fucking awful blog post. Just because you aren’t offended by it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be changed. That’s an awful argument. It’s trivial to avoid these racially charged words when programming. So just do it. Like, if a subordinate at work came to me and was like, “I wish we could do X, it would make me feel better about working here,” and X is some trivial thing, it kind of doesn’t matter what it is. It…

How do you feel about changing for example "race condition", or "controller" or "model" (which may be offensive for fat people, could remind them of fat shaming), or heck, even "server" next?

Will you still support this?

This game does not end well. The best move is not to start it at all.

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