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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

#471

Post by overgard »

antics wrote: post #419
overgard wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice. Another thing I'd point out is that there is a huge number of women who feel the same way. Rather than simply asserting they are all emotionally incontinent, you should ask yourself whether there is something about the experience of being a female programmer who feels like…

> You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice.

I take it all back. I'm sure he's the life of every party.

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

#472

Post by overgard »

reallyseriously wrote: post #466
Steuard wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, you've got me confused now. You just said, 'Women aren't being asked to "take the joke" here' . But in your previous comment that I was replying to, you said, 'My argument is that women have a sense of humor and we don't have to infantilize them by acting like they can't take a joke.' Which is it?

If I may cut in, he's saying "bro" is poking fun at other men so it has nothing to do with making a joke at the expense of women. At the same time, all people, both men and women can take aka understand "the joke" so others don't need to protect women from it like they are children without adult reasoning abilities.

Exactly. Thanks.

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

#473

Post by jeorgun »

KVFinn wrote: post #204
akjetma wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you havent explained how this is related to 'brogramming' yet. the word bro in a programming context does not automatically mean it has some kind of conspiratorial relationship with the concept of brogrammers. the author even blatantly suggests reclaiming the word for both genders.

>You havent explained how this is related to 'brogramming' yet. the word bro in a programming context does not automatically mean it has some kind of conspiratorial relationship with the concept of brogrammers. I don't think intent is relevant when evaluating whether a name is a wise choice, audience reaction is all that matters. But in any case the single example used being a do-you-even-lift-bro 'curl' points to br…

While I agree that the name 'bro' was incredibly poorly chosen, I think the use of 'curl' may have less to do with weight-lifting analogies than the fact that it's an incredibly complex command with a 2280-line manpage.

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

#476

Post by Steuard »

belorn wrote: post #451
Steuard wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, women have a sense of humor, and in general they're really good at taking a joke from time to time. But if you keep your eyes open, you'll eventually notice that women (especially in tech) wind up having to "take a joke" all the friggin' time. And that gets really old. I mean, seriously, look at this very example. Imagine that the "bro" command became a standard tool. Now picture a woman being stuck typing "bro"…

I type on a regular basis the word "woman" in emacs. Do I take a tiny but not quite negligible emotional hit of feeling excluded every single time for doing that? what about people who program ada and type the name each day? Do you think most people even will notice that the 3 letter actually represent a name, a person, a woman, each time?

Context matters. I take it from your comment that you're a man. If you were in a female-dominated profession like nursing or elementary school teaching then yes, I think things like that would wear on you pretty quickly after a while. Every time, it would be a tiny little reminder that no matter how hard you try or how successful you are, you'll still be a bit of an outsider.[0]

Some people would probably be more consciously aware than others of the fact that the 3 letters "bro" are a reference to "bro culture". Here are a few groups of people whom I think would be most likely to notice: People new to tech; women who've had bad experience with "brogrammer" types; "brogrammer" types themselves. It seems like a bad idea to adopt any policy likely to make the first two of those groups uncomfortable while signaling approval toward the third.

[0] Side notes: 1. Those professions are making a real effort to change these patterns to be more inclusive, too. And 2. Gender inequality in tech is nevertheless a more pressing problem than gender inequality in nursing, because tech is considered a higher status career.

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

#477

Post by Steuard »

scott_s wrote: post #410
Steuard wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about offending people. It's never about offending people. Plenty of people could have delightfully off-color senses of humor, love playing Cards Against Humanity, and still find this name highly problematic. It's actually about the signals that we send by using language closely associated with groups or attitudes that have long histories of excluding women or others from our culture and community. And just…

I bookmark a very small number of comment pages for HN members, and yours is one of them. I just wanted to let you know that.

Wow. Thank you!

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

#478

Post by [deleted] »

ilyanep wrote: post #282
[deleted] wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

"Geek Feminism is a highly politicized source [because they're feminist]...Perhaps you can find a more neutral source to cite as evidence [that somehow covers feminist issues without being "politicized"]" Furthermore, those explicit two pages I linked basically describe his argument and then rebut them. We can have a discussion about why the pages don't in fact describe his argument or about why you disagree with the…

[deleted]

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

#479

Post by [deleted] »

sharpneli wrote: post #465
benatkin wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Lighten up" doesn't solve anything. I'm not against jokes but the implying man in man pages means male and not an abbreviation of manual is exclusionary. http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/

"Lighten up" might be her pet peeve. My personal pet peeve is "someone might get offended". Just as she is tired of being told "lighten up" I'm somewhat tired of always having to be careful lest someone gets offended. I think it's fundamental difference in personalities. Some also want really heavy age limits of software and video. Some also want to censor the internet and some do not. I'm actually tempted to name pe…

[deleted]

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

#480

Post by Dewie »

belluchan wrote: post #32
lhnz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brogrammer is just a stereotype, brah. Not everybody that wears shades, doesn't take life seriously and speaks with an accent is misogynistic, crass, less mature than you and difficult to depend on. That's not really fair. To a bro the word just means 'friend' - somebody that's dependable, fun to hang out with and that won't over complicate things. Those descriptions seem more in line with the tool.

I have found out in life that women can also be dependable, fun to hang out with, and not "complicate things." Using "bro" is offensive because it excludes others by their gender. It's an awful exclusionary term and you shouldn't think it funny or ironic. You're not taking this serious. I'm guessing because you haven't any idea of how soul crushing it can be to see this kind of behavior in the workplace when you're a…

> I have found out in life that women can also be dependable, fun to hang out with, and not "complicate things."

And there's nothing contradictory about that. Just because 'bro' is a man who might be all of that, doesn't mean that a woman can't be the same thing. Maybe she will not get the same nickname or term of endearment, but neither does that imply that she is qualitatively different from a 'bro'.

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