22 ms·

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

by blahedo 13y ago

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 difficult stuff that everyone has to learn to be CS types, they'll also have to deal with a constant barrage of "you're not our kind" flung at them by the in-group. You personally may not be intending that as your message, but I assure you that your personal intent does not matter when you are using language that has been associated with exclusion and discrimination.[1] The problem here, if this program is actually intended to be used, is that just typing in the command would be a constant reminder of an entire subculture that is widely seen as[2] putting up walls and doors that say "NO GIЯLS ALOUD" around the programming profession, an attempt to preserve privilege. Those of you suggesting an alias are either being disingenuous or missing the point entirely. [0] Meaning individuals, of whatever gender/race/class/whatever, that are likely to be reading HN. [1] If you don't believe me, ponder for a moment sentences like, "But I like Negroes just fine!" Language matters. [2] Again, you might not mean to reference that when you use words like "brogrammer". But it's how an awful lot of us read it. EDIT: Rereading other posts on this page, I should add that I almost certainly got the phrase "shame about the name" stuck in my head from reading dewitt's post. Four words, such a concise summary of my attitude! :) EDIT 2: "they'll have" -> "that everyone has" to clarify argument. Thx vezzy-fnord.

boyaka 13y ago
Adding additional information can be done in parentheses or additional paragraphs, not by pretending to be sources.
- couchand 13y ago
  Tone argument[0] much? [0]: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument
  - mkdir 13y ago
    He was simply pointing out that the grandparent's communication style is a bit misleading. Nothing wrong with that.
  - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    Please do not link to the Geek Feminism Wiki. It is nothing but an incoherent and poorly organized collection of anecdotes.
    - rmrfrmrf 13y ago
      Ad hominem?
      - forgottenpass 13y ago
        Nope. Ad hominem would be attacking that website's content and/or credibility by insulting the people that write it. The parent poster is critical of the wiki contents itself.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      The whole idea of a Tone Argument seems ridiculous "you're denying my claims by pointing out that I am being an asshole" seems inaccurate on its face. Pointing out the someone is being an asshole is its own thing. Not to mention that being an asshole actually DOES potentially detract from their point to their own detriment and would be better avoided in most cases. The point may or may not be valid on its own, but presenting it terribly is the fault of the presenter, not the recipient, and having that pointed out isn't somehow changing the argument. That's a bit like saying the phrase "Pardon me? You were mumbling and I couldn't understand." is changing the argument.
  - quenlinlom 13y ago
    Fallacy fallacy much?
- blahedo 13y ago
  They're footnotes. Footnotes are used both to cite sources and to make remarks that are relevant but would break up the flow of the prose.
res0nat0r 13y ago
Or they aren't (over)thinking any of that above, and to most people it is a funny play on words since the tool is related to 'man' pages. I'm going to email the LKML immediately and petition that 'fsck' needs to be renamed to 'love', because I don't 'fsck', I make 'love' and I don't appreciate the negative stereotype that it implies I am some sort of inhuman non-lovemaking monster whilst going about my daily sysadmin tasks.
- blahedo 13y ago
  > ...aren't thinking any of that ... funny play on words That might well be true; my point is that at some point their individual thoughts don't matter, because they're referencing a larger meme. I'll add that if it were just a funny play on words, we might expect to see a name like "boy" or "guy" or "son" or "person" or any number of other names that are, ha-ha, kind of like "man". The fact that "bro" was picked was pretty obviously a reference to the whole "brogramming" thing. "man" pages were never really a problem in this vein, because everybody knew that despite the surface similarity (which gave rise to a variety of jokes), "man" was short for "manual", and "fsck" (which also gives rise to some funny jokes) is really short for "file system check" or something like that. "bro" is short for "brogramm(er|ing)". Your attempt to reduce my argument to absurdity in your second paragraph falls completely short because of the total lack of actual parallel to the situation we're really discussing.
  - ihuman 13y ago
    Except that your argument has the same flaws has res0nat0r's argument: neither of you know what the author was thinking when he named it. Was the creator thinking of brogramming? Was the creator thinking of it being the "bro"ther of the man pages? None of us know, so it is useless to argue about it.
    - skybrian 13y ago
      The author's intention matters when assigning blame. It doesn't matter if we're debating whether this is a good name to use from a marketing perspective.
justizin 13y ago
I absolutely agree. I don't think the creator intended to create a constant reminder of an unbalanced subculture, but I think that a similar tool named differently would be more widely used. As a dude, I would feel awkward installing bro, honestly. That said, it looks fucking handy so I think I'm gonna. ;)
marknutter 13y ago
Actually, when I think of man pages I think about pompous neckbeards who get mad at plebians who are having a hard time understanding something rather than helping them with examples. So bro pages to me sound much more friendly; man pages that are aimed at the every day "bro".
- lucisferre 13y ago
  Agreed on the first part, I recall my RTFM days and not so fondly. I also recall how inaccessible most man pages were (and are). On the second point I strongly disagree. Bro immediately makes me sigh and think this is yet another example of how many people have their heads in the sand on gender, race and culture issues in our society and workplaces. It makes me sad.
- grmarcil 13y ago
  Yeah, man pages could go a long way in terms of providing some common use examples and more legible syntax to help out inexperienced users. I like what "bro" pages are doing here in that regard, but the name is unfortunate enough to merit thinking about a change at this early stage of the project. I agree it is a pretty harmless pun on man pages, but considering that the tech industry is in a period of trying to overcome a lack of gender diversity, it could only help to avoid jokes like that come off as unfortunate or poorly thought out.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  So call the tool 'human'[1], or something else that implies friendliness without also implying a beer-swilling, knuckle-dragging, women-hating subculture[2]. [1] Yes, that's also not a great name, but that's not the point [2] I love the double-meaning of the term 'subculture' when describing this whole frat-boy pack; seems perfect.
  - A_COMPUTER 13y ago
    "Human" is also gendered, and presumes that the default status is male. Perhaps "humyn."
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
women especially, who infer that on top of all the technically difficult stuff they'll have to learn to be CS types, they'll also have to deal with a constant barrage of "you're not our kind" flung at them by the in-group The first part of your sentence sounded unintentionally demeaning, which seems antithetical to your cause.
- blahedo 13y ago
  Good point; fixed. Thanks.
  - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    I was trying to lampoon your hypersensitivity, but you're welcome anyway.
Cthulhu_ 13y ago
I don't get your (or anyone's) qualm with the phrase 'bro'. As a foreigner that mainly knows American culture from TV, both 'bro' and 'man' are things hippies use in phrases.
smoyer 13y ago
Yes, the name is goofy at best, but I'm guessing it was a play on "man" pages. I would have thought a small format "man" page would be a "boy" page, but that still has the gender connotation. If you think about what a short format "manual" page would be, perhaps a "pamphlet" (pamp?) or "brochure" (bro) makes sense (tongue in cheek at the moment). I was also sad to learn that I needed Ruby on my computers (I don't generally add it since I'm not qualified to secure it ... nothing wrong with the language other than my ignorance of it).
- pbhjpbhj 13y ago
  I quite like "pam" [pamphlet] as an alternative - not the manual just a short pamphlet of examples ... or maybe just "ex" or "eg"? [ex currently is linked to a mode of vim (which I never use) on my system; eg isn't used but the system tells me it's for easygit. "pam" says no command found but that there are 23 similar. I don't know what program provides the suggestions precisely something in the apt ecosystem I suspect]
  - smoyer 13y ago
    I don't know of a pam command in *nix, but there are a ton of modules related to the "Pluggable Authentication Module" with pam in the name. When I say "pam" at work, everyone thinks "PAM".
    - dictum 13y ago
      Pam is also often short for Pamela, which, if we're going to stick to no-gendered-anything-ever, is a gendered name.
- etjossem 13y ago
  How about "min" pages - minified manual pages?
lhnz 13y ago
Brogrammers are not the in-group. They are an out-group - which is why this whole thread is about excluding them for various reasons. You cannot have a decent argument before you realise you are being exclusionary to a group of people based on their dress sense and slang. It's not right to assume that just because a guy wears shades they're a misogynist. Perhaps the app could just have been called doc though and have skipped all of this.
mkdir 13y ago
As a society, we need to get over the chivalrous notion that something is automatically bad if it might trigger negative emotions in women. If women tend to be intimidated by head-to-head competition (of any type) with a man, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral for a man to compete head-to-head with a woman. If women tend to be intimidated when a muscular male stranger is in their presence, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral to be a muscular man in the presence of a woman. Likewise, if women tend to be intimidated when men use language that expresses pride in their manhood, it doesn't mean it's wrong for boys or men to use language that expresses pride in their manhood. To all the boys and young men who are barraged daily with messages scolding them (or worse) for using language that implies they're male: Don't let them convince you that your existence itself is an act of oppression that you must actively fight against. The notion of "original sin" is a frightening. Sadly, among certain activist groups, it's back in style.
- bronbron 13y ago
  Eh, I dunno. I'm definitely not one of those people whose champion cause is gender issues, and to be totally honest I rarely even think about it much. My general philosophy is "be professional", not "lol check ur privilege." That being said, I think you're off here. > If women tend to be intimidated by head-to-head competition (of any type) with a man, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral for a man to compete head-to-head with a woman. Err, it sure is when men have an obvious advantage. This is why we don't allow men to play in the WNBA. When men don't have an obvious advantage (e.g. competing for grades in class), you're absolutely right. Men definitely have an advantage in tech right now. You can argue whether that's innate or cultural, but it's kinda hard to argue the premise. > If women tend to be intimidated when a muscular male stranger is in their presence, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral to be a muscular man in the presence of a woman. Your actions are immoral, your mere existence never is. It's about empathy. No one's ever going to say you're wrong for being a muscular man, but people will think you're either insensitive or super oblivious if you're a huge guy wearing a hoodie walking 6 inches behind a small 105 pound woman at night in an alley. > Likewise, if women tend to be intimidated when men use language that expresses pride in their manhood, it doesn't mean it's wrong for boys or men to use language that expresses pride in their manhood. Come on: first of all replace "man/men" with "white" and see why your statement sounds a little ridiculous. Second of all, no one wants to hear that shit either way. If I have to listen to a group of women talk about how great it is to be a woman, I'm similarly going to either leave the conversation or say "what the fuck?". Wouldn't you? That shit gets old real fast if you're on the outer circle. > To all the boys and young men who are barraged daily with messages scolding them (or worse) for using language that implies they're male: Keep your chin up. These people want to break you down, not lift anyone else up. Truthfully, nobody really gives a shit what anyone has to say. It's more about who you say it around. If you wanna jibber-jabber about 401Ks or real estate investment with your bros, then go nuts. Maybe keep that talk to a minimum when you're around the guy making $8.50 an hour though, you know? It's just about sensitivity. Bro.
Pxtl 13y ago
Point. It's such a shame that gender politics have created so many thorny issues in our industry, but you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend they're not there. If we had good female representation in the industry and we didn't have a small cluster of vocal misogynists, we'd be able to make cute jokes that play on gender. But sadly, we don't live in that world. Yes, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and yes it sucks. There is no firewall around the industry - we live our professional lives online so everybody can see the messy internals of software development world... and software development has a serious gender-issues image problem. Now, depending who you talk to, that might be just an image problem, or it might be a really large slice of our industry who are sexist. But the the truth of the issue doesn't matter for this case, the perception does. And we all need to work together to change that perception. It's a funny joke, I love the name. Change it.
- rds2000 13y ago
  It's a funny joke, I love the name. Change it. A higher standard? How about an individual having backbone and integrity to stand firm, hold the line and not supplicate? I feel this, "Change it.", as if you are some castrating, sky-god feels eerie. Like you are some judge of the highest moral purity, when in reality, you're the enemy of purity. You are taking an honest, organic creation and molding it for your own ability to feel powerful on the internet. Change yourself. Feel castrated? edit: What really bothers me here is the "Change it.", it feels like a summary judgment. I don't think the author should be intimidated by popularity or political correctness. If he makes a joke, sometimes is best to own it. Personally, I don't find it funny, but I think it's an O.K. name and helps me remember its an app for reference purposes.
  - Stratoscope 13y ago
    Really? You call another HN commenter "some castrating, sky-god"? You tell them "in reality, you're the enemy of purity." You ask, "Feel castrated?" I don't care what your point is, this isn't the place for those kinds of insults and personal attacks.
    - 13y ago
pyrrhotech 13y ago
come on bro, lighten up
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
primitivesuave 13y ago
Interesting point, just want to point out that changing the name is as simple as sudo echo "bro $*" > /usr/bin/explain
- leif 13y ago
  sudo echo foo > bar doesn't work, instead use echo foo | sudo tee bar
- donotsurveil 13y ago
  No it's not. sudo echo "bro $*" > http://bropages.org http://bropages.org doesn't work and "gem install explain" neither.
soneil 13y ago
While your point isn't invalid at all, it's worth noting that UNIX naming is full of these in-jokes. All the way from UNIX being a play on Multics, less is more, the recursive GNU is Not UNIX, WINE is not an emulator, etc. While originally names were chosen to be concise for technical reasons, they've been at the whims of geek humour since time(0).
joyeuse6701 13y ago
I disagree. There is nothing wrong with 'bro' just like there is nothing wrong with a programming language 'Julia'. They are both gender specific and you as an individual can infer whatever you like about the term. Only you, the individual, can determine how you feel about what someone says or writes, only you can determine whether or not you're insulted. How something IS vs. how a group FEELS are separate, and one should not confuse the two.
- couchand 13y ago
  Unless you're trying to market a new product, in which case how people feel really does determine how your product is.
- dnautics 13y ago
  Hm. I always assumed Julia referred to Gaston Julia. Funnily I was working at a place where the HR manager was named "Julia Lang" so we all had a laugh when I discovered (and pitched) the language - with its website "julialang.org".
  - joyeuse6701 13y ago
    Hell sure, I mean Julia comes from the latin family name but, that is pretty funny.
overgard 13y ago
Absolutely, lets throw away our sense of humor and wordplay because there are theoretically people that might be offended (maybe, kindof. You know. In theory.). (N.B. the people that seem to be offended so far are offended on other peoples behalf..) Isn't it way more offensive to assume that women are such dainty delicate creatures that like, they won't get the joke?
- nknighthb 13y ago
  I am not offended on anyone else's behalf, but am personally offended, and I am a man. Don't pretend I don't exist because it's inconvenient to your worldview.
  - overgard 13y ago
    You're offended because someone used the word bro. You must be a hit at parties.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      > You must be a hit at parties. Thank you for demonstrating why I'm offended.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
    - antics 13y ago
      You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice. Another thing I'd point out is that there is a huge number of women who feel the same way. Rather than simply asserting they are all emotionally incontinent, you should ask yourself whether there is something about the experience of being a female programmer who feels like an outsider that you do not understand. (I am betting you are a man, but if you are a woman, I actually still stand by this.) I say this, overgard, because I assure you that if you talk to people who are offended you will find that most of them are reasonable people who want to talk about this in a reasonable fashion. Not just oversensitive sissies who are looking for things to be offended about.
philwelch 13y ago
U mad bro?
reallyseriously 13y ago
Intent doesn't matter? I hope you don't mean that. If someone truly does not mean to be offensive and uses a term either out of ignorance or because they don't associate the word with the same things you do, they are not a "bad person". If you're the most sensitive person in a room or office, do you set the rules of speech? This comment just makes you sound like one of those people that would relish taking someone down over a word choice, regardless if they are actually racist/sexist. Another thing that's odd, are brogrammers the in-group? Seems they are actually the out-group and are looked down upon by most other people (majority of men and women). But, for whatever reason you choose to view it from a men vs. women mentality talking about locker room mentality and "especially women". Also, your negroes example is terrible. It's worse than the same type of examples you're arguing about with people in other comments.
mattmcknight 13y ago
So would you have been happy if it had been named "woman"? (I imagine not, "oh, there is a version of man pages that only shows simple examples and you decided to name it 'woman'?")
dreamfactory2 13y ago
Much as I dislike the word 'bro' (and jock and nerd ftm), there are two huge assumptions here - 1. the language we use has that kind of subliminal power, and 2. that unintended offence is something given rather than taken. Stephen Fry has views on both topics: http://www.atheistrepublic.com/gallery/stephen-fry-taking-offense http://www.atheistrepublic.com/gallery/stephen-fry-taking-of... http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/05/religion.hayfestival2005 http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/05/religion.hayfestiv...
schrodinger 13y ago
I agree that the name sucks. For some reason, I think boy pages would have been just as funny without the same baggage.
wildgift 13y ago
I thought the name was stupid. "Bro" brings up a lot of negative stereotypes about guys.
lhl 13y ago
Yeah, it's a concept/great project, but I agree that 'bro' just carries way too much negative connotations (even besides the gender politics, I think the idea of "brogrammers" is pretty divisive). So here's a suggestion for a better/less controversial name that keeps some of the humor. Rename it: dude * Didactism Using Direct Examples - backronyms are awesome! * dude gives the same jokey connotations/play off of man (hey man, hey dude), but with a an extra dash of totally sweet, whoa as well (duuude) * Thanks to successive western->counterculture/stoner->surfer->skater usage, dude is much less gendered. It's also just way less polarizing since there's no direct connotations to any particular set/culture of programmers (you know, the fist-bumping, collar-popping, smirnoff ice pounding frat boys killing it with their new mobile app) Just my 2-cents.
- wildgift 13y ago
  Also a Big Lebowsky reference.
jlees 13y ago
I don't feel excluded by the name, but I did think the tool must be a joke rather than something that could actually be useful. Surprised to find it's the latter.
adizam 13y ago
You're looking to be offended. Bro isn't offensive. Get over it.
- GunlogAlm 13y ago
  Agreed. Some of these comments are depressing. They're probably the same kind of people who sit at their TV/computer with a pen and notepad to jot down anything they find "offensive" and complain.
baddox 13y ago
Did you consider that perhaps the name has nothing to do with "locker-room atmosphere," and is merely a pun on the "man" command, which itself has nothing to do with gender?
- aiiane 13y ago
  "Did you consider" that by using 'bro' as a pun on 'man', it inherently makes it about gender?
gravedave 13y ago
Big brofist to you, my man!
yeukhon 13y ago
Sorry, risking a crusade comes to my doorstep and downvote me to the minimum, here is a true rant: I want to express my paranoia here. I really hate when people have to bring up this gender issue in every discussion a name that sounds male-only. I am just saying: "stop raising the issue like we are on a crusade." The author has the right to choose a name and it can be that the author's geninue intent to use the name bro. Stop taking it as a joke or as a sexist comment. If this is the case we'd ban every single-gender word on this filthy ugly planet already because someone is going to be super conscious and going to cause a world war 3 one day. No I am not ignoring sexism, I am saying the only reason we have sexism is because we are so conscious and so paranoid about it. A true equality is when we forget the hell gender we are in and we see no difference in any genders. When people make comments about another gender and use that against people, that's discrimination. When people make comments about another gender and use that to his or her own entertainment, that's sexism. I can name the project bropage because the software I am making is new and feels more modern. It's like a friend asking me "yo bro you got cigarette?" If that's where I have the inspiration to call it bro page, how is that even sexist!? You are essentially making me a war criminal, against humanity... Please, stop.
- darkandbrooding 13y ago
  The use of [Debatably Volatile Term] (hereafter DVT) is poor branding for a project or product, unless the cultural baggage associated with DVT aligns with the purpose of the project/product. Assume that DVT has different connotative definitions to different audiences. If some of those connotative definitions are negative, then the use of DVT as a brand name will repel people who primarily associate DVT with that negative connotation. Let's say that you decide to publish a project, and you choose a DVT that has positive connotations to you. If people point out that DVT has negative connotations they are not necessarily associating you with those negative connotations, they might merely be pointing out the weakness of DVT in branding.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    There will always be people who don't agree with you. Someone even said that Python can be thought of a slang for male sexual organ. In Chinese, turtle head is slang for the head of the male sexual organ. If I name it turtlehead, I can called sexist by some Chinese feminist. But in my example that's probably a bad name to start with anyway. But is bro-page in the same category as turtle head? My opinion is not. I really don't see the name bro-page being sexist or evidence of ignoring feminist audience. It sounds genuine. It isn't like the author have a female model in the bro page documentation. Rather than spending the first 50 comments on this gender flame war, why don't we talk about what makes man page useful and not useful. What makes sites like explainshell and bropage useful and not useful.
anon4 13y ago
I'd have named them "spartan" pages. The name is a LOT more sexist, but few people would realise (spartans famously didn't think highly of wom¹), but it also has the metaphorical meaning of being b¹-bones, which is what these pages are. But that name is seven whole letters and that's harder to type than m¹, so I'd abbreviate it to sprn, which also stands for sy¹ pn¹, both of which are way, way more sexist than b¹. ¹ censored for your protection - ED The only way to fight moralfags is to make your product so outrageously sexist, no-one can tell it's actually sexist. Kind of like how Matt Stone and Trey Parker got the jokes in the South Park movie past the censors - each time a joke would be rejected, they'd censor/change it in a way that made it even dirtier. No-one caught onto the fact that "bigger, longer and uncut" is a dick joke.
- KVFinn 13y ago
  >The only way to fight moralfags That does wonders for your argument.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
How about: don't use if you don't like it? > [1] If you don't believe me, ponder for a moment sentences like, "But I like Negroes just fine!" Language matters. I'm pondering and all I see is an american cultular discomfort with the "N-word". A better example would be a sentence like "I like honkies just fine" (or whatever the racial slur for white people is nowdays). Suddenly, if I imagine saying it to a black person, I don't expect him / her to be offended. One needs higher levels of retroreflective offendability to be offended by self-deprecating jokes. Also, the joke here is on man pages (as in, not woman pages, though we have those in Emacs). Like I suggested elsewhere, let's burn Unix and it's derivatives (and Emacs, one sexist bastard) on the stake of gender issues. Seriously. Were the "man pages" invented today, I'd expect the same level of gender shitstorm under its "Show HN" thread that I can see here now.
LinXitoW 13y ago
How is man pages better? Before i knew what it stood for, i thought it was sexist.
- donotsurveil 13y ago
  Man is a pager interface to system documentation, the content is written y knowledgeable people and is actual documentation. Bro is a user provided database of one liner command which you have no idea if they will do what they claim when they do work.
xentronium 13y ago
While we're at it, let's please rename touch, finger and fsck. These names are horribly suggestive.
Trindaz 13y ago
So if we name them girlpages will that have the affect of attracting more women into tech?
Aldo_MX 13y ago
ln -s /bin/sis /bin/bro Problem solved.
aceofspades19 13y ago
Both me and my girlfriend work in tech and she wasn't offended by the name 'bropages'. Furthermore, she disagreed with your comment completely. She doesn't feel excluded or discriminated from the name 'bropages'. Hell, I even call her dude all the time and it doesn't bother her in the slightest. There as an episode of a tv show called community where they tried to make a mascot that wasn't offensive to anyone. It ended up being a "human" that had no face and the letter H on the front. I don't think anyone that shows off a project here should be attacked for it being offensive to some subset of people here unless it explicitly encourages hate.
smegel 13y ago
Its a free world...if you don't like it, fork it? Isn't that the open source approach, rather than telling volunteers what to do?
ehsanu1 13y ago
According to this, you're the one who's making it worse for women: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121942 I found that pretty amusing, and aligns with my expectations.
zaroth 13y ago
It must always be the act, not merely a description of an act, for which you judge. Words are expression. Meaning must always be expressed, not simply fabricated. In short, you can't imbue them with any prejudice that you yourself hold for a word. The word is theirs to use for its positive meaning. You cannot police this. Some words have no positive meaning. This one does, please stay away.
ZenoArrow 13y ago
Aside from agreeing that the idea for the service is great, I think there's an important distinction to make about why 'bro' has gotten people riled up. The issue, in my mind, is not that it has a gender bias, after all there are examples of feminine terms in computing that nobody seems to mind (e.g. programming languages like Ada, Julia, Miranda, etc...). We should feel fine about using masculine terms too. The issue instead is with the negative connotation that has built up around the word 'bro'. The solution I'd like to add to the pile is to change the name from 'bro' to 'boy', keeps the joke intact, just as quick to type, and no negative connotations. What do you think of that name?
7952 13y ago
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.
- jacobtracey 13y ago
  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.
hackinthebochs 13y ago
I'm late to the party but I'm genuinely surprised that I haven't seen this reply yet: How does everything you said NOT apply to the word "man"? Or to the "master"/"slave" terminology? I'm assuming you're not in favor of renaming man pages and master/slave terminology, so why is this different?
platz 13y ago
Monoculture is bad [1] https://speakerdeck.com/garann/bacon-is-bad-for-you https://speakerdeck.com/garann/bacon-is-bad-for-you
JackpotDen 13y ago
Would it be better if they were 'woman' pages?
smsm42 13y ago
It is fascinating how hard some people work to be offended at most trivial things. Of course "bro" is offensive - it is about males. Of course "babe" would be offensive too - it's a sexist term for a woman. Of course "professional independent highly achieving woman" would be a much better name - and still offensive, since it obviously implies the only thing such women are good for is to be the help for men who do the real work, just bringing them manuals or delivering stuff from here to there, not contributing anything of substance. And to think we use such tools as BROwsers... No wonder women don't use the internet. What? They do? Well, they must be feeling awful anyway, especially when they see HIStory staring right at them from the screen, constantly reminding them that "NO GIЯLS ALOUD". We have companies with names like Yahoo and products named like gimp and git, but of course something named "bro" can't be good.
lenkite 13y ago
I am sorry. I know I might be heavily down-voted or banned but i just cannot resist. 'bro' is so friendly, egalitarian and non-discriminatory compared to: unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes, fsck, fsck, umount

by blahedo 13y ago

boyaka 13y ago

Adding additional information can be done in parentheses or additional paragraphs, not by pretending to be sources.

couchand 13y ago
Tone argument[0] much? [0]: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Tone_argument
- mkdir 13y ago
  He was simply pointing out that the grandparent's communication style is a bit misleading. Nothing wrong with that.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Please do not link to the Geek Feminism Wiki. It is nothing but an incoherent and poorly organized collection of anecdotes.
  - rmrfrmrf 13y ago
    Ad hominem?
    - forgottenpass 13y ago
      Nope. Ad hominem would be attacking that website's content and/or credibility by insulting the people that write it. The parent poster is critical of the wiki contents itself.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    The whole idea of a Tone Argument seems ridiculous "you're denying my claims by pointing out that I am being an asshole" seems inaccurate on its face. Pointing out the someone is being an asshole is its own thing. Not to mention that being an asshole actually DOES potentially detract from their point to their own detriment and would be better avoided in most cases. The point may or may not be valid on its own, but presenting it terribly is the fault of the presenter, not the recipient, and having that pointed out isn't somehow changing the argument. That's a bit like saying the phrase "Pardon me? You were mumbling and I couldn't understand." is changing the argument.
- quenlinlom 13y ago
  Fallacy fallacy much?
blahedo 13y ago
They're footnotes. Footnotes are used both to cite sources and to make remarks that are relevant but would break up the flow of the prose.

res0nat0r 13y ago

Or they aren't (over)thinking any of that above, and to most people it is a funny play on words since the tool is related to 'man' pages. I'm going to email the LKML immediately and petition that 'fsck' needs to be renamed to 'love', because I don't 'fsck', I make 'love' and I don't appreciate the negative stereotype that it implies I am some sort of inhuman non-lovemaking monster whilst going about my daily sysadmin tasks.

blahedo 13y ago
> ...aren't thinking any of that ... funny play on words That might well be true; my point is that at some point their individual thoughts don't matter, because they're referencing a larger meme. I'll add that if it were just a funny play on words, we might expect to see a name like "boy" or "guy" or "son" or "person" or any number of other names that are, ha-ha, kind of like "man". The fact that "bro" was picked was pretty obviously a reference to the whole "brogramming" thing. "man" pages were never really a problem in this vein, because everybody knew that despite the surface similarity (which gave rise to a variety of jokes), "man" was short for "manual", and "fsck" (which also gives rise to some funny jokes) is really short for "file system check" or something like that. "bro" is short for "brogramm(er|ing)". Your attempt to reduce my argument to absurdity in your second paragraph falls completely short because of the total lack of actual parallel to the situation we're really discussing.
- ihuman 13y ago
  Except that your argument has the same flaws has res0nat0r's argument: neither of you know what the author was thinking when he named it. Was the creator thinking of brogramming? Was the creator thinking of it being the "bro"ther of the man pages? None of us know, so it is useless to argue about it.
  - skybrian 13y ago
    The author's intention matters when assigning blame. It doesn't matter if we're debating whether this is a good name to use from a marketing perspective.

justizin 13y ago

I absolutely agree. I don't think the creator intended to create a constant reminder of an unbalanced subculture, but I think that a similar tool named differently would be more widely used. As a dude, I would feel awkward installing bro, honestly. That said, it looks fucking handy so I think I'm gonna. ;)

marknutter 13y ago

Actually, when I think of man pages I think about pompous neckbeards who get mad at plebians who are having a hard time understanding something rather than helping them with examples. So bro pages to me sound much more friendly; man pages that are aimed at the every day "bro".

lucisferre 13y ago
Agreed on the first part, I recall my RTFM days and not so fondly. I also recall how inaccessible most man pages were (and are). On the second point I strongly disagree. Bro immediately makes me sigh and think this is yet another example of how many people have their heads in the sand on gender, race and culture issues in our society and workplaces. It makes me sad.
grmarcil 13y ago
Yeah, man pages could go a long way in terms of providing some common use examples and more legible syntax to help out inexperienced users. I like what "bro" pages are doing here in that regard, but the name is unfortunate enough to merit thinking about a change at this early stage of the project. I agree it is a pretty harmless pun on man pages, but considering that the tech industry is in a period of trying to overcome a lack of gender diversity, it could only help to avoid jokes like that come off as unfortunate or poorly thought out.
oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
So call the tool 'human'[1], or something else that implies friendliness without also implying a beer-swilling, knuckle-dragging, women-hating subculture[2]. [1] Yes, that's also not a great name, but that's not the point [2] I love the double-meaning of the term 'subculture' when describing this whole frat-boy pack; seems perfect.
- A_COMPUTER 13y ago
  "Human" is also gendered, and presumes that the default status is male. Perhaps "humyn."

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

women especially, who infer that on top of all the technically difficult stuff they'll have to learn to be CS types, they'll also have to deal with a constant barrage of "you're not our kind" flung at them by the in-group The first part of your sentence sounded unintentionally demeaning, which seems antithetical to your cause.

blahedo 13y ago
Good point; fixed. Thanks.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  I was trying to lampoon your hypersensitivity, but you're welcome anyway.

Cthulhu_ 13y ago

I don't get your (or anyone's) qualm with the phrase 'bro'. As a foreigner that mainly knows American culture from TV, both 'bro' and 'man' are things hippies use in phrases.

smoyer 13y ago

Yes, the name is goofy at best, but I'm guessing it was a play on "man" pages. I would have thought a small format "man" page would be a "boy" page, but that still has the gender connotation. If you think about what a short format "manual" page would be, perhaps a "pamphlet" (pamp?) or "brochure" (bro) makes sense (tongue in cheek at the moment). I was also sad to learn that I needed Ruby on my computers (I don't generally add it since I'm not qualified to secure it ... nothing wrong with the language other than my ignorance of it).

pbhjpbhj 13y ago
I quite like "pam" [pamphlet] as an alternative - not the manual just a short pamphlet of examples ... or maybe just "ex" or "eg"? [ex currently is linked to a mode of vim (which I never use) on my system; eg isn't used but the system tells me it's for easygit. "pam" says no command found but that there are 23 similar. I don't know what program provides the suggestions precisely something in the apt ecosystem I suspect]
- smoyer 13y ago
  I don't know of a pam command in *nix, but there are a ton of modules related to the "Pluggable Authentication Module" with pam in the name. When I say "pam" at work, everyone thinks "PAM".
  - dictum 13y ago
    Pam is also often short for Pamela, which, if we're going to stick to no-gendered-anything-ever, is a gendered name.
etjossem 13y ago
How about "min" pages - minified manual pages?

lhnz 13y ago

Brogrammers are not the in-group. They are an out-group - which is why this whole thread is about excluding them for various reasons. You cannot have a decent argument before you realise you are being exclusionary to a group of people based on their dress sense and slang. It's not right to assume that just because a guy wears shades they're a misogynist. Perhaps the app could just have been called doc though and have skipped all of this.

mkdir 13y ago

As a society, we need to get over the chivalrous notion that something is automatically bad if it might trigger negative emotions in women. If women tend to be intimidated by head-to-head competition (of any type) with a man, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral for a man to compete head-to-head with a woman. If women tend to be intimidated when a muscular male stranger is in their presence, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral to be a muscular man in the presence of a woman. Likewise, if women tend to be intimidated when men use language that expresses pride in their manhood, it doesn't mean it's wrong for boys or men to use language that expresses pride in their manhood. To all the boys and young men who are barraged daily with messages scolding them (or worse) for using language that implies they're male: Don't let them convince you that your existence itself is an act of oppression that you must actively fight against. The notion of "original sin" is a frightening. Sadly, among certain activist groups, it's back in style.

bronbron 13y ago
Eh, I dunno. I'm definitely not one of those people whose champion cause is gender issues, and to be totally honest I rarely even think about it much. My general philosophy is "be professional", not "lol check ur privilege." That being said, I think you're off here. > If women tend to be intimidated by head-to-head competition (of any type) with a man, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral for a man to compete head-to-head with a woman. Err, it sure is when men have an obvious advantage. This is why we don't allow men to play in the WNBA. When men don't have an obvious advantage (e.g. competing for grades in class), you're absolutely right. Men definitely have an advantage in tech right now. You can argue whether that's innate or cultural, but it's kinda hard to argue the premise. > If women tend to be intimidated when a muscular male stranger is in their presence, it doesn't mean it's wrong or immoral to be a muscular man in the presence of a woman. Your actions are immoral, your mere existence never is. It's about empathy. No one's ever going to say you're wrong for being a muscular man, but people will think you're either insensitive or super oblivious if you're a huge guy wearing a hoodie walking 6 inches behind a small 105 pound woman at night in an alley. > Likewise, if women tend to be intimidated when men use language that expresses pride in their manhood, it doesn't mean it's wrong for boys or men to use language that expresses pride in their manhood. Come on: first of all replace "man/men" with "white" and see why your statement sounds a little ridiculous. Second of all, no one wants to hear that shit either way. If I have to listen to a group of women talk about how great it is to be a woman, I'm similarly going to either leave the conversation or say "what the fuck?". Wouldn't you? That shit gets old real fast if you're on the outer circle. > To all the boys and young men who are barraged daily with messages scolding them (or worse) for using language that implies they're male: Keep your chin up. These people want to break you down, not lift anyone else up. Truthfully, nobody really gives a shit what anyone has to say. It's more about who you say it around. If you wanna jibber-jabber about 401Ks or real estate investment with your bros, then go nuts. Maybe keep that talk to a minimum when you're around the guy making $8.50 an hour though, you know? It's just about sensitivity. Bro.

Pxtl 13y ago

Point. It's such a shame that gender politics have created so many thorny issues in our industry, but you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend they're not there. If we had good female representation in the industry and we didn't have a small cluster of vocal misogynists, we'd be able to make cute jokes that play on gender. But sadly, we don't live in that world. Yes, we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard, and yes it sucks. There is no firewall around the industry - we live our professional lives online so everybody can see the messy internals of software development world... and software development has a serious gender-issues image problem. Now, depending who you talk to, that might be just an image problem, or it might be a really large slice of our industry who are sexist. But the the truth of the issue doesn't matter for this case, the perception does. And we all need to work together to change that perception. It's a funny joke, I love the name. Change it.

rds2000 13y ago
It's a funny joke, I love the name. Change it. A higher standard? How about an individual having backbone and integrity to stand firm, hold the line and not supplicate? I feel this, "Change it.", as if you are some castrating, sky-god feels eerie. Like you are some judge of the highest moral purity, when in reality, you're the enemy of purity. You are taking an honest, organic creation and molding it for your own ability to feel powerful on the internet. Change yourself. Feel castrated? edit: What really bothers me here is the "Change it.", it feels like a summary judgment. I don't think the author should be intimidated by popularity or political correctness. If he makes a joke, sometimes is best to own it. Personally, I don't find it funny, but I think it's an O.K. name and helps me remember its an app for reference purposes.
- Stratoscope 13y ago
  Really? You call another HN commenter "some castrating, sky-god"? You tell them "in reality, you're the enemy of purity." You ask, "Feel castrated?" I don't care what your point is, this isn't the place for those kinds of insults and personal attacks.
  - 13y ago

pyrrhotech 13y ago

come on bro, lighten up

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

primitivesuave 13y ago

Interesting point, just want to point out that changing the name is as simple as sudo echo "bro $*" > /usr/bin/explain

leif 13y ago
sudo echo foo > bar doesn't work, instead use echo foo | sudo tee bar
donotsurveil 13y ago
No it's not. sudo echo "bro $*" > http://bropages.org http://bropages.org doesn't work and "gem install explain" neither.

soneil 13y ago

While your point isn't invalid at all, it's worth noting that UNIX naming is full of these in-jokes. All the way from UNIX being a play on Multics, less is more, the recursive GNU is Not UNIX, WINE is not an emulator, etc. While originally names were chosen to be concise for technical reasons, they've been at the whims of geek humour since time(0).

joyeuse6701 13y ago

I disagree. There is nothing wrong with 'bro' just like there is nothing wrong with a programming language 'Julia'. They are both gender specific and you as an individual can infer whatever you like about the term. Only you, the individual, can determine how you feel about what someone says or writes, only you can determine whether or not you're insulted. How something IS vs. how a group FEELS are separate, and one should not confuse the two.

couchand 13y ago
Unless you're trying to market a new product, in which case how people feel really does determine how your product is.
dnautics 13y ago
Hm. I always assumed Julia referred to Gaston Julia. Funnily I was working at a place where the HR manager was named "Julia Lang" so we all had a laugh when I discovered (and pitched) the language - with its website "julialang.org".
- joyeuse6701 13y ago
  Hell sure, I mean Julia comes from the latin family name but, that is pretty funny.

overgard 13y ago

Absolutely, lets throw away our sense of humor and wordplay because there are theoretically people that might be offended (maybe, kindof. You know. In theory.). (N.B. the people that seem to be offended so far are offended on other peoples behalf..) Isn't it way more offensive to assume that women are such dainty delicate creatures that like, they won't get the joke?

nknighthb 13y ago
I am not offended on anyone else's behalf, but am personally offended, and I am a man. Don't pretend I don't exist because it's inconvenient to your worldview.
- overgard 13y ago
  You're offended because someone used the word bro. You must be a hit at parties.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    > You must be a hit at parties. Thank you for demonstrating why I'm offended.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
  - antics 13y ago
    You should remember that there are actual people behind the words on your screen before you say something awful like this. This is not very nice. Another thing I'd point out is that there is a huge number of women who feel the same way. Rather than simply asserting they are all emotionally incontinent, you should ask yourself whether there is something about the experience of being a female programmer who feels like an outsider that you do not understand. (I am betting you are a man, but if you are a woman, I actually still stand by this.) I say this, overgard, because I assure you that if you talk to people who are offended you will find that most of them are reasonable people who want to talk about this in a reasonable fashion. Not just oversensitive sissies who are looking for things to be offended about.

philwelch 13y ago

U mad bro?

reallyseriously 13y ago

Intent doesn't matter? I hope you don't mean that. If someone truly does not mean to be offensive and uses a term either out of ignorance or because they don't associate the word with the same things you do, they are not a "bad person". If you're the most sensitive person in a room or office, do you set the rules of speech? This comment just makes you sound like one of those people that would relish taking someone down over a word choice, regardless if they are actually racist/sexist. Another thing that's odd, are brogrammers the in-group? Seems they are actually the out-group and are looked down upon by most other people (majority of men and women). But, for whatever reason you choose to view it from a men vs. women mentality talking about locker room mentality and "especially women". Also, your negroes example is terrible. It's worse than the same type of examples you're arguing about with people in other comments.

mattmcknight 13y ago

So would you have been happy if it had been named "woman"? (I imagine not, "oh, there is a version of man pages that only shows simple examples and you decided to name it 'woman'?")

dreamfactory2 13y ago

Much as I dislike the word 'bro' (and jock and nerd ftm), there are two huge assumptions here - 1. the language we use has that kind of subliminal power, and 2. that unintended offence is something given rather than taken. Stephen Fry has views on both topics: http://www.atheistrepublic.com/gallery/stephen-fry-taking-offense http://www.atheistrepublic.com/gallery/stephen-fry-taking-of... http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/05/religion.hayfestival2005 http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jun/05/religion.hayfestiv...

schrodinger 13y ago

I agree that the name sucks. For some reason, I think boy pages would have been just as funny without the same baggage.

wildgift 13y ago

I thought the name was stupid. "Bro" brings up a lot of negative stereotypes about guys.

lhl 13y ago

Yeah, it's a concept/great project, but I agree that 'bro' just carries way too much negative connotations (even besides the gender politics, I think the idea of "brogrammers" is pretty divisive). So here's a suggestion for a better/less controversial name that keeps some of the humor. Rename it: dude * Didactism Using Direct Examples - backronyms are awesome! * dude gives the same jokey connotations/play off of man (hey man, hey dude), but with a an extra dash of totally sweet, whoa as well (duuude) * Thanks to successive western->counterculture/stoner->surfer->skater usage, dude is much less gendered. It's also just way less polarizing since there's no direct connotations to any particular set/culture of programmers (you know, the fist-bumping, collar-popping, smirnoff ice pounding frat boys killing it with their new mobile app) Just my 2-cents.

wildgift 13y ago
Also a Big Lebowsky reference.

jlees 13y ago

I don't feel excluded by the name, but I did think the tool must be a joke rather than something that could actually be useful. Surprised to find it's the latter.

adizam 13y ago

You're looking to be offended. Bro isn't offensive. Get over it.

GunlogAlm 13y ago
Agreed. Some of these comments are depressing. They're probably the same kind of people who sit at their TV/computer with a pen and notepad to jot down anything they find "offensive" and complain.

baddox 13y ago

Did you consider that perhaps the name has nothing to do with "locker-room atmosphere," and is merely a pun on the "man" command, which itself has nothing to do with gender?

aiiane 13y ago
"Did you consider" that by using 'bro' as a pun on 'man', it inherently makes it about gender?

gravedave 13y ago

Big brofist to you, my man!

yeukhon 13y ago

Sorry, risking a crusade comes to my doorstep and downvote me to the minimum, here is a true rant: I want to express my paranoia here. I really hate when people have to bring up this gender issue in every discussion a name that sounds male-only. I am just saying: "stop raising the issue like we are on a crusade." The author has the right to choose a name and it can be that the author's geninue intent to use the name bro. Stop taking it as a joke or as a sexist comment. If this is the case we'd ban every single-gender word on this filthy ugly planet already because someone is going to be super conscious and going to cause a world war 3 one day. No I am not ignoring sexism, I am saying the only reason we have sexism is because we are so conscious and so paranoid about it. A true equality is when we forget the hell gender we are in and we see no difference in any genders. When people make comments about another gender and use that against people, that's discrimination. When people make comments about another gender and use that to his or her own entertainment, that's sexism. I can name the project bropage because the software I am making is new and feels more modern. It's like a friend asking me "yo bro you got cigarette?" If that's where I have the inspiration to call it bro page, how is that even sexist!? You are essentially making me a war criminal, against humanity... Please, stop.

darkandbrooding 13y ago
The use of [Debatably Volatile Term] (hereafter DVT) is poor branding for a project or product, unless the cultural baggage associated with DVT aligns with the purpose of the project/product. Assume that DVT has different connotative definitions to different audiences. If some of those connotative definitions are negative, then the use of DVT as a brand name will repel people who primarily associate DVT with that negative connotation. Let's say that you decide to publish a project, and you choose a DVT that has positive connotations to you. If people point out that DVT has negative connotations they are not necessarily associating you with those negative connotations, they might merely be pointing out the weakness of DVT in branding.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  There will always be people who don't agree with you. Someone even said that Python can be thought of a slang for male sexual organ. In Chinese, turtle head is slang for the head of the male sexual organ. If I name it turtlehead, I can called sexist by some Chinese feminist. But in my example that's probably a bad name to start with anyway. But is bro-page in the same category as turtle head? My opinion is not. I really don't see the name bro-page being sexist or evidence of ignoring feminist audience. It sounds genuine. It isn't like the author have a female model in the bro page documentation. Rather than spending the first 50 comments on this gender flame war, why don't we talk about what makes man page useful and not useful. What makes sites like explainshell and bropage useful and not useful.

anon4 13y ago

I'd have named them "spartan" pages. The name is a LOT more sexist, but few people would realise (spartans famously didn't think highly of wom¹), but it also has the metaphorical meaning of being b¹-bones, which is what these pages are. But that name is seven whole letters and that's harder to type than m¹, so I'd abbreviate it to sprn, which also stands for sy¹ pn¹, both of which are way, way more sexist than b¹. ¹ censored for your protection - ED The only way to fight moralfags is to make your product so outrageously sexist, no-one can tell it's actually sexist. Kind of like how Matt Stone and Trey Parker got the jokes in the South Park movie past the censors - each time a joke would be rejected, they'd censor/change it in a way that made it even dirtier. No-one caught onto the fact that "bigger, longer and uncut" is a dick joke.

KVFinn 13y ago
>The only way to fight moralfags That does wonders for your argument.

TeMPOraL 13y ago

How about: don't use if you don't like it? > [1] If you don't believe me, ponder for a moment sentences like, "But I like Negroes just fine!" Language matters. I'm pondering and all I see is an american cultular discomfort with the "N-word". A better example would be a sentence like "I like honkies just fine" (or whatever the racial slur for white people is nowdays). Suddenly, if I imagine saying it to a black person, I don't expect him / her to be offended. One needs higher levels of retroreflective offendability to be offended by self-deprecating jokes. Also, the joke here is on man pages (as in, not woman pages, though we have those in Emacs). Like I suggested elsewhere, let's burn Unix and it's derivatives (and Emacs, one sexist bastard) on the stake of gender issues. Seriously. Were the "man pages" invented today, I'd expect the same level of gender shitstorm under its "Show HN" thread that I can see here now.

LinXitoW 13y ago

How is man pages better? Before i knew what it stood for, i thought it was sexist.

donotsurveil 13y ago
Man is a pager interface to system documentation, the content is written y knowledgeable people and is actual documentation. Bro is a user provided database of one liner command which you have no idea if they will do what they claim when they do work.

xentronium 13y ago

While we're at it, let's please rename touch, finger and fsck. These names are horribly suggestive.

Trindaz 13y ago

So if we name them girlpages will that have the affect of attracting more women into tech?

Aldo_MX 13y ago

ln -s /bin/sis /bin/bro Problem solved.

aceofspades19 13y ago

Both me and my girlfriend work in tech and she wasn't offended by the name 'bropages'. Furthermore, she disagreed with your comment completely. She doesn't feel excluded or discriminated from the name 'bropages'. Hell, I even call her dude all the time and it doesn't bother her in the slightest. There as an episode of a tv show called community where they tried to make a mascot that wasn't offensive to anyone. It ended up being a "human" that had no face and the letter H on the front. I don't think anyone that shows off a project here should be attacked for it being offensive to some subset of people here unless it explicitly encourages hate.

smegel 13y ago

Its a free world...if you don't like it, fork it? Isn't that the open source approach, rather than telling volunteers what to do?

ehsanu1 13y ago

According to this, you're the one who's making it worse for women: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121942 I found that pretty amusing, and aligns with my expectations.

zaroth 13y ago

It must always be the act, not merely a description of an act, for which you judge. Words are expression. Meaning must always be expressed, not simply fabricated. In short, you can't imbue them with any prejudice that you yourself hold for a word. The word is theirs to use for its positive meaning. You cannot police this. Some words have no positive meaning. This one does, please stay away.

ZenoArrow 13y ago

Aside from agreeing that the idea for the service is great, I think there's an important distinction to make about why 'bro' has gotten people riled up. The issue, in my mind, is not that it has a gender bias, after all there are examples of feminine terms in computing that nobody seems to mind (e.g. programming languages like Ada, Julia, Miranda, etc...). We should feel fine about using masculine terms too. The issue instead is with the negative connotation that has built up around the word 'bro'. The solution I'd like to add to the pile is to change the name from 'bro' to 'boy', keeps the joke intact, just as quick to type, and no negative connotations. What do you think of that name?

7952 13y ago

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.

jacobtracey 13y ago
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.

hackinthebochs 13y ago

I'm late to the party but I'm genuinely surprised that I haven't seen this reply yet: How does everything you said NOT apply to the word "man"? Or to the "master"/"slave" terminology? I'm assuming you're not in favor of renaming man pages and master/slave terminology, so why is this different?

platz 13y ago

Monoculture is bad [1] https://speakerdeck.com/garann/bacon-is-bad-for-you https://speakerdeck.com/garann/bacon-is-bad-for-you

JackpotDen 13y ago

Would it be better if they were 'woman' pages?

smsm42 13y ago

It is fascinating how hard some people work to be offended at most trivial things. Of course "bro" is offensive - it is about males. Of course "babe" would be offensive too - it's a sexist term for a woman. Of course "professional independent highly achieving woman" would be a much better name - and still offensive, since it obviously implies the only thing such women are good for is to be the help for men who do the real work, just bringing them manuals or delivering stuff from here to there, not contributing anything of substance. And to think we use such tools as BROwsers... No wonder women don't use the internet. What? They do? Well, they must be feeling awful anyway, especially when they see HIStory staring right at them from the screen, constantly reminding them that "NO GIЯLS ALOUD". We have companies with names like Yahoo and products named like gimp and git, but of course something named "bro" can't be good.

lenkite 13y ago

I am sorry. I know I might be heavily down-voted or banned but i just cannot resist. 'bro' is so friendly, egalitarian and non-discriminatory compared to: unzip, strip, touch, finger, grep, mount, fsck, more, yes, fsck, fsck, umount