Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by jcutrell » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:12 PM UTC

The fun of programming languages and open source software is, guess what, you can change it. You don't like it? Write an alias in your bashrc.

OSS authors are not held to a standard defined by all of you - they are welcome to express themselves however they want. For instance, my mother would find Brainfuck quite offensive. That doesn't mean the author should change the name.

I think the play on words is quite clever. I also think that if anyone is being marginalized, it is the "bro" - identifying the stereotype and calling out common the stereotypical language habits ("bro ...no").

And now for my personal opinion... If you're worried about the cultural implications of the names of software (rather than things that ACTUALLY marginalize women, like lower average salaries, micro-aggression and objectification, and massive imbalance of gender in the hiring process), then I think you're probably never going to be happy with anything unless it's vanilla. The fine line between comedy and tragedy in the artistic side of programming is often misunderstood, so for now I'm going to go gem install bro.

As a second note, why don't we say things like Homebrew marginalizes the alcoholics or those addicted to coffee? Because that's silly, right? Right. Fight more important fights with the same vigor.

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

#162

Post by miah_ » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:13 PM UTC

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…

The problem with your argument is that 'fsck' has nothing to do with 'fuck' and everything to do with 'File System ChecK'.

You're just further proving the OP's point.

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

#163

Post by vezzy-fnord » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:13 PM UTC

couchand wrote: post #108

boyaka wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding additional information can be done in parentheses or additional paragraphs, not by pretending to be sources.

Tone argument[0] much? [0]: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument

Please do not link to the Geek Feminism Wiki. It is nothing but an incoherent and poorly organized collection of anecdotes.

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

#164

Post by miah_ » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:14 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #139

blahedo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... 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.

The 'man' command is named that because its short for 'manual', it has nothing to do with 'men'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manual_pages

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

#165

Post by smoyer » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:16 PM UTC

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…

Yes, the name is goofy at best, but I'm guessing it was a play on "man" pages. I would have thought a small format "man" page would be a "boy" page, but that still has the gender connotation.

If you think about what a short format "manual" page would be, perhaps a "pamphlet" (pamp?) or "brochure" (bro) makes sense (tongue in cheek at the moment).

I was also sad to learn that I needed Ruby on my computers (I don't generally add it since I'm not qualified to secure it ... nothing wrong with the language other than my ignorance of it).

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

#166

Post by lhnz » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:17 PM UTC

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…

Brogrammers are not the in-group. They are an out-group - which is why this whole thread is about excluding them for various reasons.

You cannot have a decent argument before you realise you are being exclusionary to a group of people based on their dress sense and slang.

It's not right to assume that just because a guy wears shades they're a misogynist.

Perhaps the app could just have been called doc though and have skipped all of this.

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

#167

Post by skywhopper » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:17 PM UTC

ihuman wrote: post #131

blahedo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... 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.

My first guess upon seeing it was that it was poking fun at self-identified "brogrammer" hip trendy automation tools that just show you a few examples of a slick simple demo usage, and then leave you to dig through the source code to figure out the rest of the syntax and side effects, rather than even attempt to provide a comprehensive reference of any sort. "We're iterating too faaast for docs, man!"

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

#168

Post by pacaro » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:18 PM UTC

forgottenpass wrote: post #148

stinos wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually a very, very good idea. Everybody knows it, it means one thing and one thing only, and that thing also describes what it does, it probably isn't taken, and fits nicely with all other standard descriptive commands like ls/man/... Nice one.

it means one thing and one thing only, and that thing also describes what it does, it probably isn't taken http://packages.debian.org/search?suite=wheezy&arch=any&mode...

Name collisions aren't the worst things in the world, you can usually alias around them. ack vs ack-grep springs to mind

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

#169

Post by joyeuse6701 » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:19 PM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #101

joyeuse6701 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a play on words. This oversensitive, over analytical take on sexuality is getting old. What would you have preferred, the hu-man pages? But that would be exclusionary to people in the industry who don't consider themselves human! What next, are you going to suggest that parents name their children gender neutral names so they don't have to chaff at it if they change gender? You can infer everything, from anythin…

Actually why not? Why not 'bot' pages?

Actually as I wrote it, I realized it wasn't that bad an idea. Hah!

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

#170

Post by blahedo » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 7:20 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #158

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…

women especially, who infer that on top of all the technically difficult stuff they'll have to learn to be CS types, they'll also have to deal with a constant barrage of "you're not our kind" flung at them by the in-group The first part of your sentence sounded unintentionally demeaning, which seems antithetical to your cause.

Good point; fixed. Thanks.