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

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

#301

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:30 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #216

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…

Absolutely, lets throw away our sense of humor and wordplay because there are theoretically people that might be offended (maybe, kindof. You know. In theory.). (N.B. the people that seem to be offended so far are offended on other peoples behalf..) Isn't it way more offensive to assume that women are such dainty delicate creatures that like, they won't get the joke?

I'm not offended by it. It just sounds stupid.

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

#302

Post by lhl » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:31 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…

Yeah, it's a concept/great project, but I agree that 'bro' just carries way too much negative connotations (even besides the gender politics, I think the idea of "brogrammers" is pretty divisive).

So here's a suggestion for a better/less controversial name that keeps some of the humor. Rename it:

dude

* Didactism Using Direct Examples - backronyms are awesome!

* dude gives the same jokey connotations/play off of man (hey man, hey dude), but with a an extra dash of totally sweet, whoa as well (duuude)

* Thanks to successive western->counterculture/stoner->surfer->skater usage, dude is much less gendered. It's also just way less polarizing since there's no direct connotations to any particular set/culture of programmers (you know, the fist-bumping, collar-popping, smirnoff ice pounding frat boys killing it with their new mobile app)

Just my 2-cents.

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

#303

Post by jlees » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:32 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…

I don't feel excluded by the name, but I did think the tool must be a joke rather than something that could actually be useful. Surprised to find it's the latter.

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

#304

Post by wildgift » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:32 PM UTC

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…

I saw the name, and thought it was web pages for "bros". Right off the bat, that seemed like an idiotic idea. It's right up there with "let's make tv shows about white people."

Then when I read the short description, I wasn't impressed.

I read the page anyway. Again, interesting idea, but the joke was carried on in the example, and that pretty much killed it for me.

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

#305

Post by tzs » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:32 PM UTC

"Bro" can have many meanings [1] [2]. Most of the complaints seem to be coming from people who are aware of just one of these, which is not the one most people think of when the term is used.

[1] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bro

[2] http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/06/21/193881290/jea...

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

#306

Post by jlees » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:32 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #11

dewitt wrote: post #4

Is the "bro" intended to be ironic, or are the creators actually not aware that the term is used to represent the worst (most misogynistic, most crass, least mature, least dependable) people currently flocking to the industry? It is by its very definition exclusionary. I suppose "brogrammers" might be a target audience, but the concept of the tool itself is pretty good for just about anyone. Shame about the name.

Bro transcends a single very new and very narrowly-distributed usage.

What are the other usages? I genuinely don't know of any beyond the "bro culture" thing. But then I'm not a bro, so maybe I wouldn't.

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

#307

Post by donotsurveil » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:33 PM UTC

The name is terrible.

Here are a few suggestions of names:

- ccex for common case examples - howdoi for how do I - comcasex for common case examples - usex for use examples - usagex for usage examples - howtouse for how to use - ill-namedpoorlythoughtoutcommand for bro - loudandobnoxiousdespicableman for bro

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

#308

Post by noddingham » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:33 PM UTC

lowboy wrote: post #247

miah_ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The etymology is inoffensive, but the term itself is still exclusionary by way of "man" also being a gendered term. We are (and should be) more cognisant of these issues these days.

No, you're wrong. "man" is the obvious abbreviation for "manual" when trying to reduce the number of characters used. Not once as a teenager learning unix shell commands did gender (or cultural stereotypes) enter my mind when using the 'man' command, but I guarantee it does when looking at the 'bro' command.

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

#309

Post by InclinedPlane » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:34 PM UTC

overgard wrote: post #216

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…

Absolutely, lets throw away our sense of humor and wordplay because there are theoretically people that might be offended (maybe, kindof. You know. In theory.). (N.B. the people that seem to be offended so far are offended on other peoples behalf..) Isn't it way more offensive to assume that women are such dainty delicate creatures that like, they won't get the joke?

Sure. It's just one drop of water out of a clear blue sky. The sort of thing that is easily tolerable, hardly even a nuisance really. Maybe you don't have many female friends, maybe none of your female friends work in tech, and maybe you've never had any female coworkers. The fact is, for women in tech it's been raining, it's been raining every single day for decades. One drop is tolerable, but it's the unrelenting deluge that makes life miserable. Every day there's a thousand little pinpricks reminding women that they are the outsider, that they don't belong, that they are an intrusion, an afterthought. It ranges all the way from overt sexual harassment at conventions and in the workplace to sexualized images of women being used in slide decks at programming conferences to thousands of little locker room humor "jokes" floating around everywhere and being made every day.

Make no mistake, these "jokes" have consequences. We look around and we wonder why there are so few women in tech. A big reason is that so few women have the passion to don raingear they'll have to wear for the rest of their lives. Most rational folks will just choose to go somewhere it's not raining as much or as often.

So yeah, this joke is "funny", a little. Is it funny enough to justify adding to the deluge? Absolutely not. Not by a long shot. And pretending that the deluge isn't there is either ignorant, delusional, insensitive, or just actively hostile toward women. There's little excuse for this sort of thing anymore. It's raining. It's been raining. It's almost certainly going to continue to rain for a good long while. Don't be the sort of asshole who adds to the rain without thinking.

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

#310

Post by overgard » Sat, Jan 25, 2014, 8:34 PM UTC

nknighthb wrote: post #227

overgard wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, lets throw away our sense of humor and wordplay because there are theoretically people that might be offended (maybe, kindof. You know. In theory.). (N.B. the people that seem to be offended so far are offended on other peoples behalf..) Isn't it way more offensive to assume that women are such dainty delicate creatures that like, they won't get the joke?

I am not offended on anyone else's behalf, but am personally offended, and I am a man. Don't pretend I don't exist because it's inconvenient to your worldview.

You're offended because someone used the word bro. You must be a hit at parties.