31–40 of 49 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
why not?
It's unconventional, and hence distracting. It's a mental bump, it gets you thinking "why so?" instead of focusing on the text. Pretty much the same problem as violating coding convention in source code.
>>But it is really child's play compared to everything else >>that a good programmer must do to make a software system >>that succeeds for both the customer and myriad colleagues >>for whom she is partially responsible. Why the use of the word "she" ? I see a lot of articles written where the undefined person will be a she. I speak french, and "person" is a feminine name, so you can say about a person "she", but why…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Generic_he
Anything else is just politically correct nonsense.
>>But it is really child's play compared to everything else >>that a good programmer must do to make a software system >>that succeeds for both the customer and myriad colleagues >>for whom she is partially responsible. Why the use of the word "she" ? I see a lot of articles written where the undefined person will be a she. I speak french, and "person" is a feminine name, so you can say about a person "she", but why…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
why not?
It's unconventional, and hence distracting. It's a mental bump, it gets you thinking "why so?" instead of focusing on the text. Pretty much the same problem as violating coding convention in source code.
>>But it is really child's play compared to everything else >>that a good programmer must do to make a software system >>that succeeds for both the customer and myriad colleagues >>for whom she is partially responsible. Why the use of the word "she" ? I see a lot of articles written where the undefined person will be a she. I speak french, and "person" is a feminine name, so you can say about a person "she", but why…
Women complain the traditional use of he when the gender is not known promote a male centric society.
>>But it is really child's play compared to everything else >>that a good programmer must do to make a software system >>that succeeds for both the customer and myriad colleagues >>for whom she is partially responsible. Why the use of the word "she" ? I see a lot of articles written where the undefined person will be a she. I speak french, and "person" is a feminine name, so you can say about a person "she", but why…
The grammatically correct generic pronoun in English is 'he': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Generic_he Anything else is just politically correct nonsense.
>>But it is really child's play compared to everything else >>that a good programmer must do to make a software system >>that succeeds for both the customer and myriad colleagues >>for whom she is partially responsible. Why the use of the word "she" ? I see a lot of articles written where the undefined person will be a she. I speak french, and "person" is a feminine name, so you can say about a person "she", but why…
The grammatically correct generic pronoun in English is 'he': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Generic_he Anything else is just politically correct nonsense.
Interestingly wikipedia also states "In the 19th century, grammarians in England petitioned the British Parliament to declare gender-indeterminate pronouns as 'he' rather than 'they', which was common usage at the time. "
The english language is far from a codified, logically consistent system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's unconventional, and hence distracting. It's a mental bump, it gets you thinking "why so?" instead of focusing on the text. Pretty much the same problem as violating coding convention in source code.
I don't get your point. Obviously if it's a really bad convention (naming all predicates '{something}Th1s1sAFuncT10nThatReturnsABooleanValueAndILikeCheese', say), it might be worth breaking, even if it's initially distracting. Presumably you want to be making the point that this is a convention that isn't worth breaking?
Of course you may argue that this convention is evil, as a product of political oppression etc. etc.
And I'm not even questioning that - my point is that this is beyond the point. Even if it's true, it doesn't mean it has to be brought up everywhere all the time.
I'd like to be able to read an article on programming (or any other neutral subject) without an unrelated political or social agenda being shoved in my face, in whatever form.
If somebody says "to hell with your pet peeves, this is more important and you're probably a bigot anyway", that's fine to me - it's a matter of taste.
It gets on my nerves more when people pretend not to get the point at all (for the sake of polemics of course). "The use of the word she? Why on Earth would you think it sticks out? Of course if one becomes a programmer, then as a programmer she bears certain responsibilities. I can't see what you mean? I'm stumped? Why can't you read on - you're stupid, huh?" (as aaren subtly hinted in reply to my previous comment)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The grammatically correct generic pronoun in English is 'he': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they#Generic_he Anything else is just politically correct nonsense.
It's not really any less correct than a genderless pronoun, even if one particular panel disagreed. I see no reason to use a masculine pronoun when a generic one will do, and could only call it "political correct nonsense" if an author insisted on either alternating between he and she, or used "he/she".
Just as frustrating is writing that switches pronoun gender when referring to ostensibly the same person. However describing some operation between two people "Alice and Bob" it can improve clarity to make both people belong to different genders.