71–80 of 150 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a sexist statement
Describing the factual sexist environment that existed in a prior time (or, hell, the ones that exist today) is not itself sexist.
Everything else is speculation unless their is some evidence that women’s complaints were the driving factor of a change in policy rather than, say, the infantilization of women or a sexist expectation that women would take exception to it.
MIT AI Lab back in the 1960s published technical reports containing program code. The military slang 'FUBAR' f'ed up beyond all recognition, was in the student and professor engineering vocabulary. The tradition became to use 'fu' and 'bar' as nominal function names, in same manner as X and Y were nominal variables. Often in the MIT technical reports, one would see 'x = fu(y)' or 'y > bar(z)' and so forth. If you kne…
Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"?
An interesting example of the quirks we carry along with us, and the fact that the combination of behavior, intention, and interpretation can mix oddly.
MIT AI Lab back in the 1960s published technical reports containing program code. The military slang 'FUBAR' f'ed up beyond all recognition, was in the student and professor engineering vocabulary. The tradition became to use 'fu' and 'bar' as nominal function names, in same manner as X and Y were nominal variables. Often in the MIT technical reports, one would see 'x = fu(y)' or 'y > bar(z)' and so forth. If you kne…
Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"?
It blows me away that "The Jargon File" is not required canon. Well, it can be anachronistic and old-school-nerd-bro coded, but there's some primal stuff in there http://catb.org/jargon/html/
And it includes an explanation of what is wrong with ESR's version. But well, lets reiterate that: ESR is this weird kind of quasi-libertarian ego-maniac who occasionally produces something marginally useful and then oversells how that thing is part of the critical internet infrastructure or something like that.
MIT AI Lab back in the 1960s published technical reports containing program code. The military slang 'FUBAR' f'ed up beyond all recognition, was in the student and professor engineering vocabulary. The tradition became to use 'fu' and 'bar' as nominal function names, in same manner as X and Y were nominal variables. Often in the MIT technical reports, one would see 'x = fu(y)' or 'y > bar(z)' and so forth. If you kne…
Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"?
Honestly I don't know pussy.
It blows me away that "The Jargon File" is not required canon. Well, it can be anachronistic and old-school-nerd-bro coded, but there's some primal stuff in there http://catb.org/jargon/html/
These days it seems weird, even mildly culty, to make definitive and specific statements about “what hackers are like”. There are millions of us all over the world. Many of us barely have a spoken language in common, let alone share a sense of humor or cultural values.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"?
I think it is actually a little funny, nowadays of course the assumption that we particularly should be less profane around women would be seen as old fashioned and kind of a bit sexist. But I guess at the time swearing less was probably seen as a way to make women less uncomfortable. And I’m sure in some cases it did help. An interesting example of the quirks we carry along with us, and the fact that the combination…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it is actually a little funny, nowadays of course the assumption that we particularly should be less profane around women would be seen as old fashioned and kind of a bit sexist. But I guess at the time swearing less was probably seen as a way to make women less uncomfortable. And I’m sure in some cases it did help. An interesting example of the quirks we carry along with us, and the fact that the combination…
I limit swearing in mixed company and I'm not even that old.