Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 128 posts

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#101

Post by ziml77 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #85
stormbrew wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also think using they/them is only recently considered grammatically acceptable. In general, as a singular gender neutral third person pronoun for a person of unknown, unclear, or unspecified gender, they/them is approximately as old as modern english itself, having been clearly used by one of the earliest practitioners of the language, Shakespeare. What's modern is the idea that it's somehow incorrect to have a…

For what it's worth, I'm glad they/them is catching on and I use it all the time. Growing up, though, I was taught to use "he or she" / "she or he" in English class and they/them was always used in the context of third person plural. I don't consider it a newfangled thing, but the embrace of it feels new.

"They" comes off impersonal though. As if you're using it because you don't know their gender. That's why I would much prefer a new word. Something that indicates that you know they are neither he nor she. (In a similar vein I'd also prefer a distinct singular "they" and plural "you")

I do know that realistically something like that would never catch on, but I can dream...

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#102

Post by [deleted] »

kazinator wrote: post #49

The main falsehood is that the programmer must adopt, as requirements, all edge cases of every imaginable instance and interpretation of a problem domain. Even if the programmer wanted to do that, his boss, and boss's boss would disagree. It is a falsehood, of course, that "I don't have to handle cases outside of the specification we committed to". Though not always, and not for all cases. Say that my reuqirements ar…

[deleted]

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#103

Post by ajford »

ihateolives wrote: post #5

"Falsehoods programmers believe about geography: Street adresses contain street names. In many remote places in Europe, the hamlet name is considered a sufficient address." Yup, I used to spend my summers on an island where my address would be: farmstead name, island, country. Zip code was optional. Had to find creative ways to satisfy various web forms.

Lived in Puerto Rico for a while a few years back, and stuff off the beaten path (and plenty of things in town as well) wouldn't have an "address number", but instead would have a "position" based off kilometer markers.

For a good year, my address was something like "KM 5.4 Carr. 635", which was effectively "Kilometer 5.4 Highway 635". And then the put out new kilometer markers and my address changed by 0.2km in one way according to the power company and the other way according to the water company.

And IIRC, the power company had "yellow house in the back" as part of my address, since there were three houses on this lot. Don't know what would've happened if I painted the house!

Edit: Ha! Looks like a few things have changed in Google Maps and a number of things now have addresses showing up with their km marker numbers, which didn't use to be the case. For example, the Caribbean Cinemas location in Arecibo, Puerto Rico [0] has the address "Carr. #2, Km. 81.0 Barrio Hato Abajo, Arecibo, PR 00612"

[0] https://caribbeancinemas.com/theater/arecibo/

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#104

Post by Optimal_Persona »

Not on the 'email' list, but I'll add "A .org domain extension should be the sole criteria for whether a customer can be classified as a nonprofit".

I tried to create a nonprofit account at Box.com a few years ago with a .net address. It took almost 3 weeks of back-and-forth with customer support and multiple interactions with higher-ups in their legal dept. to resolve. No one there had ever considered the possibility.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#105

Post by slg »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #97
slg wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are skipping over the last two words in the definition. It isn't just holding to their own opinions. It is holding to their "opinions and prejudices ". Of the two stances "I want to be referred to by the pronouns of my choosing" and "I want to refer to you be the pronouns I dictate for you" only one of those would qualify as prejudice and therfore that is the stance that qualifies as bigoted.

I wonder if we're assuming different definitions of "prejudices". What I mean is having reached a conclusion without consideration of all the relevant details. I.e., deciding a matter prematurely. I think this lines up pretty well with the MW definition [0]. I don't see how that's related to the particular opposing stances in your example. Can you elaborate? [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prejudice

The person who refuses to use another person's preferred pronouns is obvious dictionary definition prejudice. It is someone prejudging the proper pronouns without the relevant details from the individual they are referencing. It is almost literally the person saying "I am deciding your gender without consulting you."

What are the relevant details when choosing your own preferred pronouns? Wouldn't all the relevant details be known by the person making the decision? I don't see how that can be prejudice.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#106

Post by ajford »

boredumb wrote: post #32
ihateolives wrote: post #5

"Falsehoods programmers believe about geography: Street adresses contain street names. In many remote places in Europe, the hamlet name is considered a sufficient address." Yup, I used to spend my summers on an island where my address would be: farmstead name, island, country. Zip code was optional. Had to find creative ways to satisfy various web forms.

In puerto rico up until very recently (with some lagging behind) it is the condominium building name, apt # and a zip code.

Hell, getting things to understand barrios when I lived in PR.... Yes, this address looks like it has two cities on the address. Nope, that's how it's supposed to be.

Or the hassle of trying to figure out whether a website was gonna list PR under State or Country or just not have it at all. I got really good at modifying web forms with Chrome devtools to inject Puerto Rico into the State drop-downs so I could just get shit shipped.

And for a while I didn't have any way to receive mail at the house I was renting, so I had stuff shipped to work, but they only had a rural box addr, so the addr was "Box 1234....". Anything shipping via UPS/FedEx didn't wanna touch it, so we had an alternate address for each of them (since UPS's system couldn't find one address form and FedEx couldn't find the other) and I'd have to find out who the seller was shipping with.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#107

Post by kbelder »

implements wrote: post #46
a_shovel wrote: post #19

I think the lesson to take from these lists is that covering every edge case for many real-world situations becomes asymptotically difficult. You can get 95% with no effort at all, 99% with a bit of thought, 99.9% with some effort, 99.99% with a smart design, some research, and a lot of effort, and anything further requires making it your full-time job indefinitely. It gets thornier when it comes to personal things l…

Are you sure most systems even need to record gender or pronouns? Outside of medicine sex is rarely significant, and if by gender you mean masculine or feminine traits then again (other to the person themselves) it’s largely irrelevant I’d have thought.

In the marketing world, it's vastly predictive of behavior, similar to income level or political party. Men and women tend to have highly significant differences in shopping and purchasing behavior.

So, whether they 'need' gender or not, many places 'want' gender.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#108

Post by themadturk »

ziml77 wrote: post #101
BitwiseFool wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, I'm glad they/them is catching on and I use it all the time. Growing up, though, I was taught to use "he or she" / "she or he" in English class and they/them was always used in the context of third person plural. I don't consider it a newfangled thing, but the embrace of it feels new.

"They" comes off impersonal though. As if you're using it because you don't know their gender. That's why I would much prefer a new word. Something that indicates that you know they are neither he nor she. (In a similar vein I'd also prefer a distinct singular "they" and plural "you") I do know that realistically something like that would never catch on, but I can dream...

It certainly could; look how quickly the term "Ms." as an alternative to "Miss" or "Mrs." caught on. Though it has antecedents long before the 20th century, the term caught fire in the early 1970s with the first publication of "Ms." magazine and was in widespread usage within ten years.

I think the bigger problem is coming up with an accepted alternative; there are several floating around, none of which have had a Ms. magazine moment.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#109

Post by CoastalCoder »

slg wrote: post #105
CoastalCoder wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if we're assuming different definitions of "prejudices". What I mean is having reached a conclusion without consideration of all the relevant details. I.e., deciding a matter prematurely. I think this lines up pretty well with the MW definition [0]. I don't see how that's related to the particular opposing stances in your example. Can you elaborate? [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prejudice

The person who refuses to use another person's preferred pronouns is obvious dictionary definition prejudice. It is someone prejudging the proper pronouns without the relevant details from the individual they are referencing. It is almost literally the person saying "I am deciding your gender without consulting you." What are the relevant details when choosing your own preferred pronouns? Wouldn't all the relevant de…

Thanks for clarifying! I can see now how that could be an example of prejudice.

I had a different scenario in mind: person A indicates their preferred pronouns to person B, but person B refuses to use those pronouns for well-considered reasons and with a full understanding of the situation. It's this scenario that I was arguing to not be a case of bigotry nor prejudice.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#110

Post by trono »

xdennis wrote: post #11

The original one about names was about exposing people to different culture's perspective (like how Icelanders have last names based on their father's first name), but this expands into nonsensical territory like "people can change genders multiple times a day"[1]. It just feels like being a rebel for rebellion's sake. [1]: https://medium.com/gender-2-0/falsehoods-programmers-believe...

No post body was provided.
Post reply on HN