Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

bropages.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

761–770 of 872 posts

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

#761

Post by jtheory »

mkdir wrote: post #619
jtheory wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer: yes, of course it's sometimes appropriate. But if you're having a serious conversation with someone on the subject of privilege, and you're on the privileged side (and they're not), the likelihood of you accurately identifying when they should lighten up is so vanishingly small (I keep finding my blind spots in spite of years of being attentive to this kind of stuff...), and the chance that they might actuall…

You're fighting to create a world in which the intellectual currency is not reason, evidence, or logic; it's self-proclaimed victimhood. If I claim I'm a victim in a way that you're not, it becomes literally impossible for you to prove me wrong. If I go on to claim that we need new policies to protect me from (and/or compensate me for) that victimhood, you can't disagree. You can't do anything other than supplicate.…

#2 - I say things because I think they will be useful, entertaining, or persuasive to the person I'm talking with. So even when I'm right, and a person is going to far, someone should talk it over with them, but that's not me; I'm a poisoned source.

I'm offering practical advice, but it's obviously not for you.

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

#762

Post by jacobtracey »

7952 wrote: post #754
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…

Its a bad name because it draws attention away from the actual content and towards meaningless debate that we all love so much. I prefer the github style naming that just describes what something is.

The name doesn't do that. All the Social Justice Warriors that have invaded HN are doing that. If they spent more time actually programming something they'd be less time to moan about the name of a command line tool.

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

#763

Post by jacobtracey »

nknighthb wrote: post #239
pstack wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has been a casual term of friendship and acknowledgement between guys for even longer than it has been a douche-bag-frat-boy-sleazy-programmer reference, however. There's not really any need to associate every occurrence of the word "bro" with that, unless it is clearly intended to do so (which, maybe this is, I wouldn't know). I just know that getting irate over this, at the moment, is like losing your crap over…

> It has been a casual term of friendship and acknowledgement between guys for even longer than it has been a douche-bag-frat-boy-sleazy-programmer reference, however. In my entire life , I have only heard "bro" come from the mouths of bullying douche-bag frat-boy sleazes, usually while telling me the assault they just committed against me was "just a joke". It has never come from anyone I would willingly subject mys…

I've never been near a frat or anything related to an American college and I lots of my female and male friends use the word 'bro' to greet/reference each other.

It's terrible that you've had such a shitty life, but it'd be great if you didn't push your stupid 'I'm offended by everything' agenda down everyones throat.

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

#764

Post by jacobtracey »

jabelk wrote: post #737
VexXtreme wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're moving the discussion goalposts. This isn't about housing in Asia and I have no time to discuss that. I have made my opinion on racism and discrimination well known. If you are choosing to ignore that and move goalposts around, it just proves you're an unreasonable person.

YOU moved the discussion goalposts by bringing up your trip to Asia in the first place. And then you told me I had no right to be indignant about the systematic exclusion of women from tech because it was a "first world problem" compared to the discrimination you faced in Asia which, of course, you didn't even care about anyway! So don't try to tell me that I'm unreasonable.

That did not move the goal posts. You're being intellectually dishonest and attacking a straw man.

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

#765

Post by jacobtracey »

mtrimpe wrote: post #757
paul wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words are meaningless without definition. You say that the word "bro" is needlessly offensive. Let me ask you, where is your balance point? What is the right level of offensive? The cost of censorship is real, and teaching people to be helpless victims does more harm than any word ever could.

Yet even without definitions you are typing words and I am reading them and we're having a conversation here, so let's not go pretend-meta here. The right level of offensive is the level that, given all viewpoints, does the most to benefit to society as a whole. You're a rich straight white guy whose only discomfort over this comes down to not being able to say whatever you damn well want whenever you damn well pleas…

> You're a rich straight white guy

Could you be any more offensive and dismissive? What difference does his cultural background have when discussing the name of a piece of software?

Oh, wait, everything right? Cisgendered, rich white men are the enemy!

If you want, think of 'bro' as a shortened version of 'brochure'. Is it less offensive to you now?

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

#766

Post by raganwald »

spikels wrote: post #659
raganwald wrote: post #392

My experience is this: Some time ago, I wrote a post about CoffeeScript. As you may know, CoffeeScript is a whitespace-specific programming language. I am black, and there is a small cultural wiggle-room when it comes to black people making fun of colour-based cultural issues. So I thought I could get away with calling my post "White Power." The response was immediate and scathing. Regardless of whether I was persona…

Oh oh! Did you really just say "A few people continued to RAG me about it"? I know you think you are very language sensitive and not a mysoginst. But to use the word RAG! http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rag So how do you plan to repent! First beg for forgiveness until everyone agrees you have begged enough. Second make some pledge for the future. Of course you will never use that word again but how abo…

I was basically done with this thread, but your comment is sufficiently interesting.

Compare two programmers. One believes that code must be perfect right out of the gate or else it is very embarrassing. The other believes continuous iteration is the normal state.

If presented with a major design challenge ("This UX doesn't work at all for people using screen readers"), I posit that the first developer is motivated to explain why the code as it stands is a good idea ("Those users aren't our market.") The first programmer views the idea of being wrong as deeply embarrassing, and wants to avoid feeling shame, or weakness, or whatever it is that involves saying "I was wrong."

The second programmer makes changes and carries on without worrying about it.

And so it is with a word. If you are deeply embarrassed at the notion of having to change, you make up all sorts of reasons why you are right and the people pointing out another way are wrong.

Whereas if you believe that development is all about iteration, you make the change and move along.

I am the second kind of writer. Many times I have blogged something, been called out about some technical or social point, and simply edited my posts. To me, iteration is a sign that things are working properly.

So... If HN allowed me to edit my comment to remove a word I now know is inappropriate, I would do so without worrying about it. I wish more people would take the same attitude: "Oh, this may make things inaccessible for someone? Let's change it and move on without drama just as we change our code and move on without drama."

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

#768

Post by jacobtracey »

davesque wrote: post #672
ComSubVie wrote: post #260

A very nice idea and I hope it will gain a lot more examples (at least I will try to add further examples)! And I love the name and it's play on the manpages. But a lot here seems to recommend changing it - can anybody explain to a non-native-speaker what the problem is with the current name?

The problem is that "bro" summons up the image of the hyper-masculine culture of college fraternities in the United States which has, to some extent, infiltrated the tech world in recent years. Some unfortunate aspects of this culture include: - Excessive drinking - Objectification of women - Fear/ridicule of homosexuals - Practice of hazing rituals - Cults of personality/Hero worship Basically, role up all the regre…

So, we apply the 'American Fraternity Guy' definition to a word that has existed for longer than the USA as a country has and is used cross culturally to mean many different things (usually just 'friend' in my experience).

HN ought to be closed down if this kind of ridiculous rhetoric continually overtakes actual technical content. If it doesn't happen sooner or later everyone interested in actually discussing technical topics will move elsewhere.

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

#769

Post by jacobtracey »

davesque wrote: post #668
unreal37 wrote: post #574

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this tool was invented 20 years ago, before the whole brogrammer thing took over the term bro, everyone would have thought it was a clever play on man pages. Seems the word bro itself has become offensive, even if used in a non-offensive context.

Exactly. So why, in this day and age, would someone be stupid enough to name their new tool in that way? It's kinda hard to believe that whoever created this couldn't use a lesson in tact.

Because it's not untactful.

Perhaps if people didn't live in their little USA bubble they'd realise that the word 'bro' in most countries just means 'friend' or 'brother'. Even if it is inherently gendered there's nothing offensive about it.

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

#770

Post by jacobtracey »

a3_nm wrote: post #736
falcolas wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A short confession. After participating in this forum for a few years, I never thought this was an actual problem. Watching this whole thread of conversation has been very enlightening, and not in the way I had hoped. So, on behalf of those of us who had not seen these attitudes before so blatantly on parade, my sincerest apologies.

I had a similar moment of realization about gender equality once. I used to believe that IRC was a very nice medium because the gender of the participants was not revealed (unless they wanted to), so (I thought) it was entirely free from gender prejudices. Then, I discussed with someone on the channel of a hackspace I used to go to (but had just started attending so I didn'n know the people well); I had never seen th…

IRC is gender neutral.

You made a foolish assumption. Not everyone does that, or even cares in the slightest what a users gender/age/cultural background/disability/whatever is.

All you have done is reveal your own past personal prejudice. Congratulations on getting over that.

Post reply on HN