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

From
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date
Jun 15, 2021, 18:45 UTC
Message-ID
<874kdzymzh.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<18b53cae-6da9-c970-b994-caee11c5baf9@crashcourse.ca>
On Tue, Jun 15 2021, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
Show 9 quoted lines
> On Tue, 15 Jun 2021, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
>   no, it doesn't ... and wikipedia explains it nicely:

It doesn't make for better documentation? Maybe not, but can you comment on specific parts of the changes in this series that make it worse?

Show 23 quoted lines
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_and_Bob
>
> "In cryptography, Alice and Bob are fictional characters commonly used
> as placeholders in discussions about cryptographic protocols or
> systems, and in other science and engineering literature where there
> are several participants in a thought experiment. The Alice and Bob
> characters were invented by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard
> Adleman in their 1978 paper "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures
> and Public-key Cryptosystems".[1] Subsequently, they have become
> common archetypes in many scientific and engineering fields, such as
> quantum cryptography, game theory and physics.[2] As the use of Alice
> and Bob became more widespread, additional characters were added,
> sometimes each with a particular meaning. These characters do not have
> to refer to humans; they refer to generic agents which might be
> different computers or even different programs running on a single
> computer."
>
>   if you want to make the docs better, have at it, but please don't do
> something as meaningless as replacing "bob" and "alice" because you're
> feeling politically correct, or woke, or whatever the hell the kids
> call it these days.
>
>   jesus ...

I believe that the commit message of 1/6 addresses the point you're raising here: http://lore.kernel.org/git/patch-1.6-abbb5b9ba13-20210615T161330Z-avarab@gmail.com

Previous: Robert P. J. DayNext: Felipe Contreras
Message 14 of 24 in “doc: replace "alice" and "bob" examples”
  1. 0/6 doc: replace "alice" and "bob" examplesÆvar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Jun 15, 2021
  2. 1/6 gittutorial doc: replace "alice" and "bob" with "you" and "www-data"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Jun 15, 2021
  3. Bagas SanjayaJun 16, 2021
  4. Junio C HamanoJun 16, 2021
  5. Felipe ContrerasJun 16, 2021
  6. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonJun 17, 2021
  7. 2/6 gitcvs-migration doc: replace "alice" and "bob" with "you" and "www-data"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Jun 15, 2021
  8. Bagas SanjayaJun 16, 2021
  9. 3/6 daemon doc + code comments: reword "alice" exampleÆvar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Jun 15, 2021
  10. 4/6 fast-import doc: change "bob" in an example to "file.txt"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Jun 15, 2021
  11. 5/6 doc: replace "alice" and "bob" with "jdoe" and "msmith"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Jun 15, 2021
  12. 6/6 pack-protocol doc: use "www-data" in place of "alice"Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason, Jun 15, 2021
  13. Robert P. J. DayJun 15, 2021
  14. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonJun 15, 2021
  15. Felipe ContrerasJun 15, 2021
  16. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonJun 15, 2021
  17. Felipe ContrerasJun 16, 2021
  18. Phillip SusiJun 17, 2021
  19. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonJun 17, 2021
  20. Junio C HamanoJun 16, 2021
  21. Robert P. J. DayJun 16, 2021
  22. Jeff KingJun 16, 2021
  23. Felipe ContrerasJun 16, 2021
  24. Randall S. BeckerJun 16, 2021

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