Why is it "teach your girlfriend"? Why does he presume that his audience has a girlfriend who needs to be taught, rather than a boyfriend? You can't say "well he has a girlfriend so he wrote it like that" because he's not talking about him in the title, he's talking about you - he's presuming you have a girlfriend who needs to be taught, and that's sexist. I don't think it's the crime of the century, but I do think less of the guy.
Let's not let facts get in the way of political correctness, shall we? /sarcasm
Audience = programmers. Programmers = at least 90% male. I don't know what proportion have girlfriends, but we can always hope the number is pretty good.
Mostly because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft. I don't see anywhere in there, where it is stated that a girlfriend needs to be taught. Would it be ok if it was "teach your boyfriend" ? Where are you going with this ? You think that title is sexist because he says he has a girfriend that he will be teaching ?
Added in response to : 'It wouldn't be sexist if he wrote "how I taught my girlfriend to program". Imagine if it said "how to teach your black friend to program". Why only black friends?Why only girlfriends?'
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Sorry, trying to mix race in this just to raise issues is simply not going to fly with me.
He has a girlfriend and wants the world to know they both are geeks that want to do something together. There is no plural in that title unlike the way you distorted it, it is a common way to use the infinitive, what is your problem with that, can't you just read it for what it is. Don't you see there simply isn't traction for a sexist cavalcade on some guy that is over the moon because he found someone that will put up with his 'teaching'. How can you miss something so simple to the point you are trying to project discrimination on some couple doing something together.
There's a difference between girlfriends and black friends. (Hint: are you having a close, sexual relationship with all your black friends?) Therefore it's appropriate to distinguish between your girlfriend versus regular friends. It is not appropriate to distinguish between black friends and your regular friends. If he had written about teaching your female friends to program I would see that as full-on sexist. As it stands you are seeking to be offended and you found something offensive which is unsurprising.
Then why does he say "teach your girlfriend" rather than teach your partner, or teach your friend, or teach someone? If the fact that it is his girlfriend is just his situation, why suggest that I teach my girlfriend in the title?
I make no claims that the post is a good one, or that its title is particularly apt. In fact I think its a bit vacuous, a better title could have been "I'm young and in love and I'm amazed to have found someone I can share my geekiness with and I want to tell everyone about it". Unless you know the guy personally there's not much point to reading it, but I'd say there's also not much justification for inferring sexism.
But anyways, because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft.
On twitter, he says that he thinks gender neutral language is boring. You seem to have the same opinion. I'm sorry that including me as part of a potential audience is boring to you, and yes I find that sexist.
You are purposely finding sexism in that. When people on HN use female pronouns as gender-neutral "... CEO ... she ..." I don't immediately assume only women are capable of that position. And when they write "he" I don't assume that women are incapable.
You are part of the potential audience, the girlfriend in the article is meant to represent every non-programmer (male and female) and he is meant to represent every programmer (male and female), and you full well know that. You are being ridiculous by asserting that everyone who doesn't write in the style you prefer is sexist.
I think it was a stupid article, but the only part remotely close to sexism was where he only described male programmer friends.
I didn't agree with anything anyone said on Twitter. Sorry, but you are mistaken on that opinion you believe I share. Don't know why you would go about imagining that I am aligned in any way to anything that I did not read.
Also, there is nothing wrong with gender neutral language, it just doesn't apply to something that is told in the first person. If you find that to be not inclusive enough for you ande a standard to judge what you read, that is your own inner workings. It will just make you loose out on a lot of great books. Either way, others don't have to externalize the same things or put up with your labeling, that would be very odd.
I didn't say you specifically agreed with what he said on Twitter. I categorised your suggestion that using gender neutral language would be 'daft' together with his idea that it would be 'boring'. If you want to, go ahead and explain why these are such different ideas that I should not have done so.
The article wasn't written in the first person, it was written as instructional and in the second person (I vs you). Writing in the second person is generally an attempt to connect with an audience. Language choices such as using gender neutral pronouns and references can be made to connect more or less with different audiences, and this author rejected them because it wasn't worth it to him. I do not like his decision not to bother including me as his targeted audience. If you don't like that I don't like that, well that is your own inner workings, why does it bother you so much when I want to be included?
Why do you feel so excluded? I feel quite capable of empathising and responding to written content whatever the distribution of genders. One of the joys of consuming human culture is letting yourself be put in the position of others, whether or not (or maybe especially if) they don't match your gender. The fact that the guy was teaching his girlfriend was an important data point to him, its part of the piece, but no need to feel excluded.
I said it was daft in the context of his recount. You seem to miss important parts and move the goal posts a lot there and the passive agressive reuse of others language and the cherry picking stuff ain't my thing at all, so I will leave you going at it alone. I do not wish to engage at that level at all.
The internet is the world-wide network of computers. The web is HTTP and HTML and other such technologies, that may or may not run on top of the internet, but when they do they form the world-wide-web or web for short.
When people talk about clothes on the web, it's nonsense because they probably don't run HTTP.
