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A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

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Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#111

Post by trono »

feoren wrote: post #63
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...

The reason I like "people can change genders multiple times per day" is not because it suggests your implementation of gender should support that, but rather that you should not try to implement gender at all . One of the main messages from these is to stop mindlessly asking for "Last Name" or "Gender" when your system has no need for that information to do its job. Get your system to do its main job, and if there is…

No post body was provided.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#112

Post by slg »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #109
slg wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, I thought lostcolony had already eliminated that specific scenario as not being bigoted. It can be biased, but it wouldn't be bigoted if there are justifiable reasons for not making the switch. That isn't prejudice as it is a decision made after the relevant details are known.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#113

Post by lllt »

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.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#114

Post by naniwaduni »

a_shovel wrote: post #95
bko wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it's an intake form for an eye doctor appointment, it won't tell you dick all. Where are you getting your information? Results: Sex and sex hormones influence the lacrimal system, eyelids and blinking, corneal anatomy and disease, aqueous humor dynamics and glaucoma, crystalline lens and cataract, uveitis and retinal disease, ocular circulation, and optic nerve anatomy and disease. Systemic conditions, particula…

Skimmed the paper on Scihub. It looks like it's mostly a review of other studies that either show statistical correlations or are about hormone levels. I.e. it directly supports their point that sex is just being used as a proxy for the thing that you really want to know. (And most of it seems irrelevant for someone with healthy eyes getting a new pair of glasses.)

Proxies for the thing you really want to know are pretty useful when you can check the proxy cheaply and the thing you really want to know is (comparatively) expensive to test.

Like, I don't think the world would be better if we routinely gave cismen pregnancy tests, would it?

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#115

Post by [deleted] »

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...

[deleted]

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#116

Post by stormbrew »

naniwaduni wrote: post #114
a_shovel wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skimmed the paper on Scihub. It looks like it's mostly a review of other studies that either show statistical correlations or are about hormone levels. I.e. it directly supports their point that sex is just being used as a proxy for the thing that you really want to know. (And most of it seems irrelevant for someone with healthy eyes getting a new pair of glasses.)

Proxies for the thing you really want to know are pretty useful when you can check the proxy cheaply and the thing you really want to know is (comparatively) expensive to test. Like, I don't think the world would be better if we routinely gave cismen pregnancy tests, would it?

Again, we're talking about forms here. If you have a reason to want to know if someone has a uterus or might be or become pregnant, you can just ask that. Forms for things where this is important usually do anyways. Sometimes gated on an "if you answered female to the above..." which actually compounds the problem for some people who are not neatly categorized that way.

Likewise, asking a cis man if he is or might be pregnant should not be a horrible thing to do, nor a problem for record keeping, though like I alluded to in my initial reply here, it does sometimes cause confusion or even confrontation to ask them.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#117

Post by Semiapies »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #75
feoren wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I like "people can change genders multiple times per day" is not because it suggests your implementation of gender should support that, but rather that you should not try to implement gender at all . One of the main messages from these is to stop mindlessly asking for "Last Name" or "Gender" when your system has no need for that information to do its job. Get your system to do its main job, and if there is…

Some systems do require some form of gender identification, specifically any type of system dealing with naturally generated text in languages where conjugation and other semantic elements can change based on the speaker.

"They" and "their" are in fact words computers can use.

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#118

Post by lostcolony »

slg wrote: post #112
CoastalCoder wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, I thought lostcolony had already eliminated that specific scenario as not being bigoted. It can be biased, but it wouldn't be bigoted if there are justifiable reasons for not making the switch. That isn't prejudice as it is a decision made after the relevant details are known.

Just to be clear, for the parent, 'person B refuses to use those pronouns for well-considered reasons and with a full understanding of the situation' may apply when we're talking about systems, but there are plenty of people who would use that sort of reasoning to be why they refuse to use someone's pronouns in conversation. No one doing so believes their reasons are poorly considered and/or that they have an incomplete understanding of the situation, after all.

So, yes, "justifiable", as in, "to change that in the system would be a lot of cost and risk and we simply can't justify it, but I agree it sucks that it's that way", not as in "You were assigned male at birth and I refuse to use anything other than he/him when referring to you, because I believe I understand the science, and your personal situation, better than you".

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#119

Post by haihaibye »

feoren wrote: post #56
quadrifoliate wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, it is incredibly revealing of your personal biases...if you implement gender as a boolean that also determines the user's pronouns. It is probably revealing of your personal biases that you cannot imagine systems in languages other than English that need to do some of this since multiple parts of the language, including verbs, are necessarily gendered, with a neutral gender usually only reserved for inan…

There's a world of difference between "Which of these two options defines your gender identity and sex organs?" and "Which grammatical gender form should we use for words when we talk about you?". The former is a deeply personal question with unclear benefit; the latter is a specific question about how you want the site to do a specific thing it needs to do. (Does it really need to do that? Why exactly are you asking…

It could help an e-commerce site predict what kind of clothes to recommend, or otherwise segment you for marketing

Re: A curated list of falsehoods programmers believe

#120

Post by NateEag »

remram wrote: post #89
NateEag wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that said, there are a number of really good email validators out there in the wild. One of the oldest can be found at http://isemail.info/about , (along with a test suite to write your own implementation and some sage advice about the basic approaches it's reasonable to take when validating email addresses). Yes, dependencies aren't completely free conceptually, even when they're distributed free of charge, but…

Is there a reason to validate an email address? Even if it is valid, you can't use it for anything until you check that the right person owns it and is able to read mail you send there. I personally accept any string that is between 3 bytes and 1 kilobyte, if they click the link in it then it's good.

Yes - you validate the email address to improve your UX.

It reduces the odds of the user giving you a wrong email address then having to either jump through more hoops to get signed up or give up.

You're absolutely right that the acid test is "can they receive email to it?"

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