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Comment by vezzy-fnord

11 years ago

Clearly this is very offensive, exclusionary and misogynistic. I mean, it's not like software has ever been named based on word play-oh, wait...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin_%28Scheme_implementatio...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Orifice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagios

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAME

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_%28protocol%29

Then it's very common for forks of other software, or software that is meant to compliment another program, to humorously reference the original program. The examples are numerous.

"Brogrammer" is a very recent neologism that originated out of a perceived frat culture amongst primarily (surprise) web developers, but it's still mostly used to describe a hypothetical bottom of the barrel person, rather than any seriously observed overtaking of programming by immature frat boys.

"Bro" dates far before that. I think it's perfectly valid to use it as a pun on "man", which originally stood for "manual", yes. But that's how word play works. The GNU Project hosts jokes like these on their site, too. I haven't heard of anyone complaining.

If you can't stand it, alias it. But being dramatic about it is ridiculous.

"Offensive things have been commonly done before, therefore it's okay" - http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallaci...

  • Yet I'm sure you've used the libmp3lame encoder all the time.

    The point here is to illustrate that none of this is offensive. But rather, it's being creative with language.

    • But you completely missed his point. Just because the industry used to use misogynistic terms is not a good reason for it to continue to do so.

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It's almost amusing how well you captured everything I wanted to say. Kudos to you sir. Er...bro