The Gender Issue
So, Maxwell is working on some kind of programming homework for one of his classes. It has to do something with people, as he's looking at an Excel spreadsheet as well, and it has names and whatnot. So, he turns to me and says, "Would it be sexist if I had a boolean called 'male'?" I asked why not female, he replied that male is a shorter word. I thought about it. I suggested he call the boolean Y. For Y-chromosome. I thought it was clever. He said that if he put "y" no-one would know what it meant. So I suggested "yChromosome."
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"There's nothing left to do!! We must BOOGIE!" Then he stood and started dancing around. Excuse me, I'm going to join him.
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Anyway, back to the story. He complained that 'yChromosome' was even longer than female. I said that at least it was clever. He didn't want to type such a long name. So, he asked again if 'male' would be sexist. I said, "probably." He asked if setting it to 'female' would be sexist. "Probably." Exasperated with me, he set the variable name to 'sane.' True being for male, false for female. -_-
A few minutes later he says to me, "Hey, at least everyone defaults to female." "Well," I replied, "at least that's something." He laughs at me, and says, "..Because all my variables are set to false!!" >_< .
......
"There's nothing left to do!! We must BOOGIE!" Then he stood and started dancing around. Excuse me, I'm going to join him.
......
Anyway, back to the story. He complained that 'yChromosome' was even longer than female. I said that at least it was clever. He didn't want to type such a long name. So, he asked again if 'male' would be sexist. I said, "probably." He asked if setting it to 'female' would be sexist. "Probably." Exasperated with me, he set the variable name to 'sane.' True being for male, false for female. -_-
A few minutes later he says to me, "Hey, at least everyone defaults to female." "Well," I replied, "at least that's something." He laughs at me, and says, "..Because all my variables are set to false!!" >_< .