2 ms·

People love renaming things and coming up with some reasoning why a name is offensive. A similar issue came up at one of the companies (in which I've worked) ha

People love renaming things and coming up with some reasoning why a name is offensive. A similar issue came up at one of the companies (in which I've worked) hack-a-thons, which is called Code Rage. A single person expressed how rage makes them think of road rage and not coding. Anyways their longer argument was that rage seems like a negative connotation. Even though rage probably refers to a "rager" or party, not aggressive driving. There's another incident recently with a building proposal in NYC for a building called Penn 15. Because so many Americans still latch on to grade school humor, we can't get past the fact that if you remove an "n" it looks like Pen 15, or Penis if you squint and make enough puns. They should rename the language to Cock, as in cocking a gun, cocking your head, or another name for a rooster. Grow the fuck up already. Maybe the offending name as you personally initially interpreted, made you think it means something else. Perhaps you just need to seek more context around a name? Perhaps Coq needs to provide a more upfront representation and information of their chosen name? I honestly don't disagree or agree and think we could all grow up a bit and have a more mature society if we didn't focus on petty insignificant changes to things like this.

tombert 6y ago
Maybe we should all "grow the fuck up already", and it's likely that a majority of people have "grown the fuck up", but that doesn't really change anything. You can't just tell people to grow up and expect it to actually happen. The Penn 15 thing is a more ridiculous example, but if people are using the name "Coq" to make people uncomfortable, then that's just how it is, no amount of telling people to act like grownups is going to change that. And even if it weren't making people uncomfortable, the fact is that it's harder to get management to sign off on using something like Coq if they feel it sounds like an "HR Violation Waiting to Happen". Changing to something more innocuous might work to get Coq used more in industry. As it stands, I almost never mention it at work anymore, and instead talk about TLAPS and Isabelle whenever I need to mention proof systems.
- yepthatsreality 6y ago
  That's honestly too bad, I think telling people to grow does matter. It usually has to come from a respected person for it to latch on. I think worrying about every word being a potential "HR Violation Waiting to Happen" is an approach that leads to doubling down on these ideas as offensive, giving way to "only these words are appropriate" world.
  - tombert 6y ago
    I mean, part of me agrees with you, it's immature to make jokes about genitalia with an innocuous word in French and even if they did then a few stupid jokes isn't a big deal. At the same time, I feel like it's really easy for me to say stuff like that, as a white male working in tech, a group that's never been unwelcome in STEM (at least not in my lifetime).
    - yepthatsreality 6y ago
      Absolutely fair and agreed.

tombert 6y ago

Maybe we should all "grow the fuck up already", and it's likely that a majority of people have "grown the fuck up", but that doesn't really change anything. You can't just tell people to grow up and expect it to actually happen. The Penn 15 thing is a more ridiculous example, but if people are using the name "Coq" to make people uncomfortable, then that's just how it is, no amount of telling people to act like grownups is going to change that. And even if it weren't making people uncomfortable, the fact is that it's harder to get management to sign off on using something like Coq if they feel it sounds like an "HR Violation Waiting to Happen". Changing to something more innocuous might work to get Coq used more in industry. As it stands, I almost never mention it at work anymore, and instead talk about TLAPS and Isabelle whenever I need to mention proof systems.

yepthatsreality 6y ago
That's honestly too bad, I think telling people to grow does matter. It usually has to come from a respected person for it to latch on. I think worrying about every word being a potential "HR Violation Waiting to Happen" is an approach that leads to doubling down on these ideas as offensive, giving way to "only these words are appropriate" world.
- tombert 6y ago
  I mean, part of me agrees with you, it's immature to make jokes about genitalia with an innocuous word in French and even if they did then a few stupid jokes isn't a big deal. At the same time, I feel like it's really easy for me to say stuff like that, as a white male working in tech, a group that's never been unwelcome in STEM (at least not in my lifetime).
  - yepthatsreality 6y ago
    Absolutely fair and agreed.