How to Design Software Good • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Design Software Good

#161

Post by GuiA » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:36 PM UTC

zeveb wrote: post #141

GuiA wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to keep a tally; in 2018, any document that exclusively uses masculine pronouns for genderless subjects reads as outdated. When writing on technical topics, the chief concern is to be clear, accurate, and straightforward. Anything that might distract your reader is undesirable. By referring to “the user” as “he”, you’re already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership (if you’re writing the docume…

> any document that exclusively uses masculine pronouns for genderless subjects reads as outdated. Correct English is never out of style. Different languages do different things, and that's okay. Some languages apply grammatical gender to more than just sex, e.g. tools, or fruit. That's okay. English uses grammatical gender to distinguish between male, female & neuter objects, and defaults to male when referring to u…

Except there is no such thing as “Correct English”.

If we were speaking about eg contemporary France French, you would have a point - there is a governing body decreeing what is correct French and what isn’t.

That is not the case for English.

But even that is besides the point, because “they” as a genderless pronoun has been used for over half a millennia. (William Caxton, 1460: “Each of them should...make themself ready”)

Re: How to Design Software Good

#162

Post by GuiA » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:38 PM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #72

GuiA wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a user, they are using the system, and that’s about as much as we know about them.

"He" clocks in at two characters, it's a very concise way of referring to an arbitrary person. "The user" takes longer to write and longer to say. Forcing the reader to juggle around "or" conditions (i.e. with "he or she") is even worse and I consider it bad practice. Your readers will thank you for concreteness and brevity.

You’ll notice that my previous post uses “they” as shorthand for “the user”. If your last remaining argument is that “he” is 2 letters and “they” is 4 and thus it’s unequivocally better to always use “he”, it’s not a very good one.

Re: How to Design Software Good

#163

Post by GuiA » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:46 PM UTC

CathyWest wrote: post #101

GuiA wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to keep a tally; in 2018, any document that exclusively uses masculine pronouns for genderless subjects reads as outdated. When writing on technical topics, the chief concern is to be clear, accurate, and straightforward. Anything that might distract your reader is undesirable. By referring to “the user” as “he”, you’re already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership (if you’re writing the docume…

> you’re already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership If by 50% you mean 100% of the women having trouble making it through an article with multiple instances of "he" not immediately followed by "or she", that's a pretty bold claim. I suspect the key factor in people's inability to focus on the central point of the article lies in their political persuasion rather than the shape of their genitalia.

50% refers to the mix of male and female people who get distracted by this; in my experience as a technical writer who would always use “he” when I was less experienced, perhaps 70% of women and 30% of men?

It was certainly one aspect of my writing I got a lot of feedback on. Changing that habit was fairly easy, and has entirely solved the problem.

I’m not sure what’s political about pointing out that “the user” of eg a computer system is not always a “he”, but if you want to bring the conversation there, have fun. If anything, it’s starting to feel to me like people with no interest in technical writing are coming out of the woodwork and making this political!

Re: How to Design Software Good

#164

Post by mixmastamyk » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:52 PM UTC

dacracot wrote: post #140

doubletgl wrote: post #82

Sorry to be a pedant, but the grammar and capitalization in this guide do not instill confidence. "How to Design Software Good" <- design well? "How will Your Users Do Their Work?" <- Seriously?

I came here to say this. It's not that I believe someone who is poor at grammar could not be an expert software architect, but every article makes a first impression with the title, and this one failed.

It's a joke, sheesh.

Re: How to Design Software Good

#165

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:53 PM UTC

adrianN wrote: post #73

bkmartin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most common example I see is the password requirement that it must be between 8 and 16 characters... The 16 character limit is the main issue there... You know it has to do with the wya the data is stored.

Between 8 and 16 characters, but only 7 bit ASCII. But there is no error message if you use § in your password, it just kills the server.

[deleted]

Re: How to Design Software Good

#166

Post by mixmastamyk » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

rwmj wrote: post #113

Slightly off topic, but has anyone tried Haiku? We recently ported nbdkit to Haiku and it was a pleasant experience dealing with the developer. However I never actually used Haiku (just reviewed and applied patches).

It's easy to grab an .iso and run with Virtual Box. Every five years or so I do that with Haiku and ReactOS to see how they are progressing.

Re: How to Design Software Good

#167

Post by mixmastamyk » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

anonytrary wrote: post #60

GuiA wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to keep a tally; in 2018, any document that exclusively uses masculine pronouns for genderless subjects reads as outdated. When writing on technical topics, the chief concern is to be clear, accurate, and straightforward. Anything that might distract your reader is undesirable. By referring to “the user” as “he”, you’re already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership (if you’re writing the docume…

> By referring to “the user” as “he”, you’re already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership (if you’re writing the documentation for a Do It Yourself Vasectomy Kit, perhaps you get a pass). Do you have any research/data to back this up? I'm a male and I am not distracted when people use "she" (or "he" for that matter). I have never heard anyone in person complain about not being able to focus on an arti…

We need an "it" that can be applied to a person.

Re: How to Design Software Good

#168

Post by mixmastamyk » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 5:32 PM UTC

waddlesplash wrote: post #50

JadeNB wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This document was mostly written almost a decade ago, and by someone who I think went to a prestigious institution. So the "rules of style" back then aren't what they are today. What does the second half of the first sentence have to do with the second sentence?

That prestigious institutions up until the past few years used male pronouns to refer to generic individuals as being "proper English", which this document ostensibly is, and this explains the document's use of them?

Yes, replacing "he/she" with "they" was discouraged because it is plural. Since then gender issues have come to the forefront and this drawback has been deemed less important. "They" is now recommended by most folks, but wasn't the case 12 years ago.

Times change.

Re: How to Design Software Good

#169

Post by AznHisoka » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #157

AznHisoka wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats how I interpreted it. Sort of like when people say happy christmas instead of merry.

"Happy Christmas" isn't tongue in cheek. It's just literally what people in England actually say.

Everything people in England say is tongue in cheek though... but I get your point :)

Re: How to Design Software Good

#170

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Nov 09, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #167

anonytrary wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By referring to “the user” as “he”, you’re already distracting roughly 50% of your potential readership (if you’re writing the documentation for a Do It Yourself Vasectomy Kit, perhaps you get a pass). Do you have any research/data to back this up? I'm a male and I am not distracted when people use "she" (or "he" for that matter). I have never heard anyone in person complain about not being able to focus on an arti…

We need an "it" that can be applied to a person.

English has had one for a long time, “they”.

Elitist prescriptivists who wanted English to be Latin because of bizarre linguistic fashion tried to purge it, but never did from general use, and prescriptivism, especially on points that have never aligned with common usage,has fallen out of favor, so there is little reason not to use it now but adherence to a particularly archaic elitism.