RE: [PATCH 0/6] doc: replace "alice" and "bob" examples

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 15, 2021, 16:54 UTC
Message-ID: <60c8db3558fb8_1296f208ac@natae.notmuch>
In-Reply-To: <cover-0.6-00000000000-20210615T161330Z-avarab@gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> I suggested in [1] that the "alice" and "bob" examples in our
> documentation would be better written without a reference to such
> fictional characters, for reasons that have nothing to do with trying
> to bend over backwards to avoid any reference to people's gender. It
> just makes for better documentation.

I'm fond of Alice and Bob, and I'm saddened they are the latest casualty of the culture war, but if we are avoiding gender of examples, it makes sense to let them go.

However, I want to defend this usage a little.

  1. Alice and Bob are familiar, so it requires less cogntive load from
     the user.
  2. Alice and Bob promote the usage of git as a distributed VCS, where
     unlike centralized VCS, you directly use the repositories of your
     colleagues.
  3. They provide some relief to an otherwise sterile landscape.

I don't think these changes make for a necessarily better documentation, just a more sterile one.

Cheers.

-- 
Felipe Contreras