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I'm fine with his choices, but the meaning of red and green as stop and go has become quite universal. Is there anywhere in the world that doesn't have traffic

I'm fine with his choices, but the meaning of red and green as stop and go has become quite universal. Is there anywhere in the world that doesn't have traffic lights? (ok, anywhere in the world that you'd be likely to see a linux device) I see it regularly extended to such things as "accept" vs "decline" on phone screens when a call comes in. Applying those colors to stock market charts is not a particularly natural extension of the concept, though. Although I'd pick green as "up", still, it isn't as direct as something like allow/pass or deny/block. Those fall well into red light / green light territory to me.

seanmcdirmid 6y ago
Bhutan doesn't have any traffic lights. They tried one out briefly, but the people didn't like it. They do have some programmers, probably more than a few Linux installations. Not sure if they have any Linux developers, but it wouldn't be incredibly surprising if they had a couple.
- robbrown451 6y ago
  It doesn't surprise me that someone would come up with a counterexample. :)
chillacy 6y ago
Maybe not directly related but some traffic lights in japan are more what we'd call blue than green https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/515205/why-does-japan-have-blue-traffic-lights-instead-green https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/515205/why-does-japan-ha... At the end of the day why bother with another quirky cultural color-meaning-pair when there's something so literal available? I want to avoid re-learning terms when we meet aliens who happen to perceive colors in our visible spectrum ;)
- robbrown451 6y ago
  Of course, for a Japanese person coding in English that's the least of their problems.... I'll admit the benefits of color-coding things are less if you are using words as opposed to actual colors, but I still think an argument could be made for using green and red, since deny/block and allow/pass seem a bit too closely tied to a specific expected action. I could imagine uses of the terms in the future (not necessarily in linux code) where those descriptors don't quite work, but where the colors names communicate the concept in a more general way. It reminds me of the issue with the idea of calling black people "African Americans." It wasn't all that well thought through, because it is overly specific and doesn't work for, say, a black person who never lived in America.
  - chillacy 6y ago
    I'm a native english speaker but trying to learn other languages (and speaking with english learners) has given me a new appreciation for simplicity for ease of learning. For something which wants to be the lingua franca of the world I think this is a desirable attribute. And given few things are universal across existing cultures, it doesn't leave much room for metaphor. The whole term of African-American is indeed a confusing mess, for reasons you pointed out, but also that a straightforward interpretation might mean that Elon Musk (being South African) should fall under that umbrella, but to suggest so would land you in some hot water. I would hate to have to explain this nuance constantly to non-native speakers.

seanmcdirmid 6y ago

Bhutan doesn't have any traffic lights. They tried one out briefly, but the people didn't like it. They do have some programmers, probably more than a few Linux installations. Not sure if they have any Linux developers, but it wouldn't be incredibly surprising if they had a couple.

robbrown451 6y ago
It doesn't surprise me that someone would come up with a counterexample. :)

chillacy 6y ago

Maybe not directly related but some traffic lights in japan are more what we'd call blue than green https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/515205/why-does-japan-have-blue-traffic-lights-instead-green https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/515205/why-does-japan-ha... At the end of the day why bother with another quirky cultural color-meaning-pair when there's something so literal available? I want to avoid re-learning terms when we meet aliens who happen to perceive colors in our visible spectrum ;)

robbrown451 6y ago
Of course, for a Japanese person coding in English that's the least of their problems.... I'll admit the benefits of color-coding things are less if you are using words as opposed to actual colors, but I still think an argument could be made for using green and red, since deny/block and allow/pass seem a bit too closely tied to a specific expected action. I could imagine uses of the terms in the future (not necessarily in linux code) where those descriptors don't quite work, but where the colors names communicate the concept in a more general way. It reminds me of the issue with the idea of calling black people "African Americans." It wasn't all that well thought through, because it is overly specific and doesn't work for, say, a black person who never lived in America.
- chillacy 6y ago
  I'm a native english speaker but trying to learn other languages (and speaking with english learners) has given me a new appreciation for simplicity for ease of learning. For something which wants to be the lingua franca of the world I think this is a desirable attribute. And given few things are universal across existing cultures, it doesn't leave much room for metaphor. The whole term of African-American is indeed a confusing mess, for reasons you pointed out, but also that a straightforward interpretation might mean that Elon Musk (being South African) should fall under that umbrella, but to suggest so would land you in some hot water. I would hate to have to explain this nuance constantly to non-native speakers.