I am an OpenEdge (aka Progress) developer that loves clean code and good looking applications that are easy to use. My main pet project is the Progress DataDigger
I used to be of the type that found things like this a bit pedantic, forced and far-fetched, until I met my daughter's boyfriend, who was a Belgian living in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands we often make jokes about our neighbour country Belgium and we often depict them as dumb. To be fair, Belgians joke about the Dutch being stingy.
Anyway, I always thought that people just joked about Belgians but that no-one really believed it. I was wrong. Very wrong. He told me that a lot of people around him treat him as if he really is dumber than the average guy. His father experienced the same, so that's what opened my eyes. The truth is that he attended VWO at school, which is the highest you can do. And both his father and mother are professor at the university, so you can hardly define them as dumb.
The same is true for the guys/girls debate. If you constantly address your audience with 'guys', girls will start believing they have no place in tech. And we should welcome a mix of people since it makes a group so much more complete. I have worked both in 100% male teams and in mixed teams and group atmosphere in the mixed teams was better in all cases.
Finally, for those who still think this is not needed, if you really think it will not make a difference, then using a more neutral form surely won't hurt, will it?
A mind at work. Microsoft MVP && Passionate .NET dev lead && VP, Innovation and Products at SCT Software. Opinions here are mine. Trying to be all the human I can be with the time I have.
I used to be of the type that found things like this a bit pedantic, forced and far-fetched, until I met my daughter's boyfriend, who was a Belgian living in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands we often make jokes about our neighbour country Belgium and we often depict them as dumb. To be fair, Belgians joke about the Dutch being stingy.
Anyway, I always thought that people just joked about Belgians but that no-one really believed it. I was wrong. Very wrong. He told me that a lot of people around him treat him as if he really is dumber than the average guy. His father experienced the same, so that's what opened my eyes. The truth is that he attended VWO at school, which is the highest you can do. And both his father and mother are professor at the university, so you can hardly define them as dumb.
The same is true for the guys/girls debate. If you constantly address your audience with 'guys', girls will start believing they have no place in tech. And we should welcome a mix of people since it makes a group so much more complete. I have worked both in 100% male teams and in mixed teams and group atmosphere in the mixed teams was better in all cases.
Finally, for those who still think this is not needed, if you really think it will not make a difference, then using a more neutral form surely won't hurt, will it?
Thank you for the additional example! That's exactly the kind of thing I'm hoping to improve.