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If you surveyed black programmers and asked them about their experiences with discrimination, how many would cite the use of terms such as "blacklist" in source
by Bostonian 5y ago
If you surveyed black programmers and asked them about their experiences with discrimination, how many would cite the use of terms such as "blacklist" in source code? I suspect not many. Changing source code has a cost and should not be done just to signal virtue.
- eesmith 5y agoNo need to fret. It appears that this change was not done "just to signal virtue", and that the internal evaluation at Twitter concluded was enough to justify the cost, according to the thread starting at: https://twitter.com/negroprogrammer/status/1278728953667022848 https://twitter.com/negroprogrammer/status/12787289536670228... > I was inspired to start this work when I saw an email come through to our eng org with the line "automatic slave rekick.” Seeing it was infuriating. I’ve been used to seeing the word “slave” throughout my CS education but this was different. ... > Keeping in mind that there are many different perspectives on inclusive language, we reached out to folks from our business resource groups for help. Just like it's important to understand the potential benefits, it's also important to understand the cost. This sort of tool appears to help with with the cost part of the analysis.