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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

#171

Post by vezzy-fnord »

blahedo wrote: post #153
ihuman wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No. 1) A big part of my point is that it doesn't matter what an author is thinking when it comes to discussing how others will react to it. I won't restate here my arguments on that topic. 2) We can safely say that the creator was thinking of brogramming. Aside from the fact it would be an astonishing coincidence, the original page uses as one of its examples "curl --header "X-GirlsAreBrosToo: 1" www.bropages.org". C…

1) Catering to every person's sensibilities is impractical. The whole argument about it being offensive comes from ignorance of word play, anyway. In that regard it is unjustified.

2) Of course it wasn't an accident. `man` is a shorthand for manual that led to plenty of jokes. `bro` serves a complementary function to `man`, and thus it humorously references its inspiration and sibling program using a diminutive.

Yet you also show ignorance of etymology. The term "bro" didn't originate with "brogramming", which is a very recent neologism and not widely known outside of hipster tech communities and feminist circles. "Bro" and "bromance" have been around for a long time. How does having a fake "X-GirlsAreBrosToo" header imply "brogramming"?

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

#172

Post by mixmastamyk »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #124

Clearly this is very offensive, exclusionary and misogynistic. I mean, it's not like software has ever been named based on word play-oh, wait... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_%28Scheme_implementatio... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Orifice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagios https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_%28protocol%29 Then it's very common for forks of other sof…

Or, GIMP?

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

#173

Post by stared »

Great! 'man' usually is a good reference but one of the worst place to start.

One comment: the thing with voting takes _way_ to much space, and hence not that many things are visible. (Maybe a _single_ line would be better.) But the idea with feedback is great!

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

#174

Post by mkdir »

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…

As a society, we need to get over the chivalrous notion that something is automatically bad if it might trigger negative emotions in women.

If women tend to be intimidated by head-to-head competition (of any type) with a man, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral for a man to compete head-to-head with a woman.

If women tend to be intimidated when a muscular male stranger is in their presence, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral to be a muscular man in the presence of a woman.

Likewise, if women tend to be intimidated when men use language that expresses pride in their manhood, it doesn't mean it's wrong for boys or men to use language that expresses pride in their manhood.

To all the boys and young men who are barraged daily with messages scolding them (or worse) for using language that implies they're male: Don't let them convince you that your existence itself is an act of oppression that you must actively fight against.

The notion of "original sin" is a frightening. Sadly, among certain activist groups, it's back in style.

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

#176

Post by Pxtl »

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…

Point.

It's such a shame that gender politics have created so many thorny issues in our industry, but you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend they're not there. If we had good female representation in the industry and we didn't have a small cluster of vocal misogynists, we'd be able to make cute jokes that play on gender. But sadly, we don't live in that world.

Yes, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and yes it sucks. There is no firewall around the industry - we live our professional lives online so everybody can see the messy internals of software development world... and software development has a serious gender-issues image problem. Now, depending who you talk to, that might be just an image problem, or it might be a really large slice of our industry who are sexist. But the the truth of the issue doesn't matter for this case, the perception does.

And we all need to work together to change that perception.

It's a funny joke, I love the name.

Change it.

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

#177

Post by vezzy-fnord »

blahedo wrote: post #170
vezzy-fnord wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was trying to lampoon your hypersensitivity, but you're welcome anyway.

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

#178

Post by pyrrhotech »

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…

come on bro, lighten up

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

#180

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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