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Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

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Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#131

Post by ihuman »

blahedo wrote: post #121
res0nat0r wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they aren't (over)thinking any of that above, and to most people it is a funny play on words since the tool is related to 'man' pages. I'm going to email the LKML immediately and petition that 'fsck' needs to be renamed to 'love', because I don't 'fsck', I make 'love' and I don't appreciate the negative stereotype that it implies I am some sort of inhuman non-lovemaking monster whilst going about my daily sysadmin…

> ... aren't thinking any of that ... funny play on words That might well be true; my point is that at some point their individual thoughts don't matter, because they're referencing a larger meme. I'll add that if it were just a funny play on words, we might expect to see a name like "boy" or "guy" or "son" or "person" or any number of other names that are, ha-ha, kind of like "man". The fact that "bro" was picked wa…

Except that your argument has the same flaws has res0nat0r's argument: neither of you know what the author was thinking when he named it. Was the creator thinking of brogramming? Was the creator thinking of it being the "bro"ther of the man pages? None of us know, so it is useless to argue about it.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#135

Post by ilyanep »

res0nat0r wrote: post #112
blahedo wrote: post #99

Great idea; shame about the name. Here's the problem with using words like "bro" (however jokingly): the problem is not with what you [0] are thinking when you read the word "bro", but with what other people , especially newcomers, are thinking. The locker-room atmosphere that stuff like this creates is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people, women especially, who infer that on top of all the technically difficu…

Or they aren't (over)thinking any of that above, and to most people it is a funny play on words since the tool is related to 'man' pages. I'm going to email the LKML immediately and petition that 'fsck' needs to be renamed to 'love', because I don't 'fsck', I make 'love' and I don't appreciate the negative stereotype that it implies I am some sort of inhuman non-lovemaking monster whilst going about my daily sysadmin…

Unless you're going to tell me that 'fsck' was intentionally named to conjure up the idea of the word 'fuck' when mentioned, your example is completely unrelated and only a red herring. 'bro' is a tool that was explicitly named 'bro' because it's a play on words with 'man', and so there was an explicit choice made to associate the tool with 'bro' and 'brogrammer', etc. If you can't see the difference, I really have to wonder about the average quality of commenter on this site anymore.

Once we get past that stage, are we really overthinking the consequences of the name? Personally, as a male, the name doesn't really bother me beyond the association of the term 'brogrammer' with fratty programmers who drink a lot and don't even code that well (and tbh, I think that alone should be a stereotype one would want to avoid). However, should we at least consider and discuss the implications of asking a female programmer to ask a 'bro' for advice whenever she doesn't know something? Words don't necessarily mean only what you want them to mean. Sometimes they mean what people take them to mean.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#136

Post by pstack »

neumann wrote: post #109
pstack wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if people here are being intentionally thick or not. "Is bro supposed to be sexist or is it meant to be ironic?" "Man referred to manual, not men!" I can't even imagine many of you people watching a stand-up comic. Your heads must verge on exploding. The diagram for the pun/humor here would be about as simple as a diagram could be.

Well, bad comedy is still bad. Much like the naming of this idea. The term is already reserved for a subgroup that celebrates itself for being exclusionary, crass and insistently unreflective about its privilege in society.

It has been a casual term of friendship and acknowledgement between guys for even longer than it has been a douche-bag-frat-boy-sleazy-programmer reference, however. There's not really any need to associate every occurrence of the word "bro" with that, unless it is clearly intended to do so (which, maybe this is, I wouldn't know).

I just know that getting irate over this, at the moment, is like losing your crap over someone including a "manifest" file with their software.

People gotta calm down and not be so jumpy. There's enough intentionally offensive and exclusionary stuff going on in our world without assuming everything else is, too.

Not to say I disagree with you about the way it is often used, though. Nothing more grating than playing a game and hearing a bunch of teenagers say "bro" and "brah" thirty-seven times per minute.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#137

Post by ilyanep »

nsfmc wrote: post #129
res0nat0r wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they aren't (over)thinking any of that above, and to most people it is a funny play on words since the tool is related to 'man' pages. I'm going to email the LKML immediately and petition that 'fsck' needs to be renamed to 'love', because I don't 'fsck', I make 'love' and I don't appreciate the negative stereotype that it implies I am some sort of inhuman non-lovemaking monster whilst going about my daily sysadmin…

i think the more subtle point, which you're free to disagree with, is that the word 'bro' has a ton of baggage around it from the offest. the word 'man' isn't chosen because it's trying to remind people who need help of the patriarchy's stranglehold on information, it's just short for manual, which i think most people can stomach. If you wanted to parody 'manual', you could name the command 'rtfm' or 'automatic' or '…

Come to think of it, 'otto' would have been a brilliant name.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#138

Post by wonderzombie »

pstack wrote: post #69
mtrimpe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're shitting us right? Manpages referred to man uals , not men . But given that I'm obviously swimming against the tide here at HN I'll just cave ..... Word, brah! Like, totally right on! We should be making like 'sispages' next with like only explanations and shit. Get it? For like the sissy-grammers! Awesome dude. You da bomb!

I can't tell if people here are being intentionally thick or not. "Is bro supposed to be sexist or is it meant to be ironic?" "Man referred to manual, not men!" I can't even imagine many of you people watching a stand-up comic. Your heads must verge on exploding. The diagram for the pun/humor here would be about as simple as a diagram could be.

Why should anyone's head explode? A stand-up comic who isn't funny pisses off the audience, it's incredibly painful to watch, and the comic doesn't get invited back.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#139

Post by skybrian »

blahedo wrote: post #121
res0nat0r wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or they aren't (over)thinking any of that above, and to most people it is a funny play on words since the tool is related to 'man' pages. I'm going to email the LKML immediately and petition that 'fsck' needs to be renamed to 'love', because I don't 'fsck', I make 'love' and I don't appreciate the negative stereotype that it implies I am some sort of inhuman non-lovemaking monster whilst going about my daily sysadmin…

> ... aren't thinking any of that ... funny play on words That might well be true; my point is that at some point their individual thoughts don't matter, because they're referencing a larger meme. I'll add that if it were just a funny play on words, we might expect to see a name like "boy" or "guy" or "son" or "person" or any number of other names that are, ha-ha, kind of like "man". The fact that "bro" was picked wa…

We're so used to the "man" command that I think it's hard to judge how it would sound if someone invented it today. There might very well be calls to rename it.

We're okay with it because we're used to it, it's from a different time, and it's far too late to change it now. Those aren't good excuses for a new project.

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