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[da_nang]

But sexism or no you cannot deny there are significant differences in the way of thinking between the sexes, so if it is possible this difference has crept into the fundaments of logic and thus programming it's worth investigating at least.

Say wha-

Any logic system is essentially a box of axioms. Applying such a system is putting input through axioms to get output. I'm interpreting the impact of this "difference" to manifest in two possible ways: structure (axiomatic definition) and interpretation (axiomatic understanding).

A difference in axiomatic definition is obvious. If one defines a gender-specific axiom, then quod erat demonstrandum. But this is obvious. Trivial. Self-apparent and expected. But these are merely different axioms and different people would put different axioms in the box. The system is in no way sexist nor does it even take a stance on gender. Blame that on the person who chose to define the gender-specific axiom, not on the concept of a logic system. The abstract concept itself doesn't give a damn about gender.

A difference in axiomatic understanding is basically: male A thinks the axiom means this, female B thinks it means something else. This merely means the axiom is ambiguous and ill-defined. Which begs the question; where one would find such axioms? No doubt there might be a logic system constructed out there that might have ambiguous axioms but these would rarely find any use in reality.

That said, programming logic is based on the same logic found in mathematics. Formal logic. To imply that there might be gender "differences" in programming logic implies these are also found in formal logic. Specifically in the axioms, of which there are many. Now, I don't know these off-hand but out of the ones I have seen I find their abstraction rule out differences in axiomatic definition. As for axiomatic understanding, given proper abstraction, it would require a difference on such a low level I'd find the existence of such a difference absurd. Almost petty, too.

And no, mangling axioms doesn't count.

[Max White]

Ok, so I have been giving it some thought and here is how I would 'feminize' an OOP language so that calling methods was a little more feminist.
When calling a method, the object being invoked intrinsically has access to the caller. So for example:

Code: [Select]

class CalledObject
{
public MainObject void InvokeFunction()
{
called.InvokeOtherFunction()
}
}

class MainObject
{
public SystemInterface void Main(string[] args) //I guess SystemInterface could be useful somehow? It is kind of required for logical consistancy anyway.
{
CalledObject o = new CalledObject()
o.InvokeFunction()
}

public CalledObject void InvokeFunction()
{
print "Well that was silly!"
}
}
So for those wondering the method signature is pretty much [visibility modifier] [caller type] [return type] [name][parameters].


You will notice this makes static anything pretty much impossible, so take from that what you will... Any programmers out there will be looking at this and thinking "But that is so bad! It totally bastardizes all these good design principles! Why would anybody choose to use this!"... Well I never said it was good, just possible. Doing things this way don't allow you to easily do anything that regular old OOP can't do more easily, but it is nicer towards the objects feelings.

[Jelle]

But sexism or no you cannot deny there are significant differences in the way of thinking between the sexes, so if it is possible this difference has crept into the fundaments of logic and thus programming it's worth investigating at least.

Say wha-

Any logic system is essentially a box of axioms. Applying such a system is putting input through axioms to get output. I'm interpreting the impact of this "difference" to manifest in two possible ways: structure (axiomatic definition) and interpretation (axiomatic understanding).

A difference in axiomatic definition is obvious. If one defines a gender-specific axiom, then quod erat demonstrandum. But this is obvious. Trivial. Self-apparent and expected. But these are merely different axioms and different people would put different axioms in the box. The system is in no way sexist nor does it even take a stance on gender. Blame that on the person who chose to define the gender-specific axiom, not on the concept of a logic system. The abstract concept itself doesn't give a damn about gender.

A difference in axiomatic understanding is basically: male A thinks the axiom means this, female B thinks it means something else. This merely means the axiom is ambiguous and ill-defined. Which begs the question; where one would find such axioms? No doubt there might be a logic system constructed out there that might have ambiguous axioms but these would rarely find any use in reality.

That said, programming logic is based on the same logic found in mathematics. Formal logic. To imply that there might be gender "differences" in programming logic implies these are also found in formal logic. Specifically in the axioms, of which there are many. Now, I don't know these off-hand but out of the ones I have seen I find their abstraction rule out differences in axiomatic definition. As for axiomatic understanding, given proper abstraction, it would require a difference on such a low level I'd find the existence of such a difference absurd. Almost petty, too.

And no, mangling axioms doesn't count.

Of course it is not about interpreting your axioms subjectively. There is no interpretation, only applying the rules formed by the logic system you're using on the axioms, so it would very much be a case of your first option.
The basic laws of logic you formulate are a matter of choice. There is no proving them because that would mean using logic inference of the logic system you're trying to prove. Therefore if they are up to choice, the thought processes that resultated in their formulation by whomever it is that thought them up can be biased by a gender specific way of thinking. The example in question (although I haven't read for myself, must verify) would experiment with a logic system without the law of identity, because it is possibly inherently a masculine way of thinking.
Frankly it seems a little silly, but it is not impossible so like I said it's worth exploring at least.

[ed boy]

I saw that parody feminist language that satirized the need for a feminist language, and it said exactly the same things these people are saying @_@ If the satire implements exactly what the satiree (?) wishes for, is it still satire?!

Is this not the same satire? I'm pretty sure it's just someone being very committed to the joke.

No, the Hastac project was the inspiration for the satire. The Hastac people are very much working within the postmodern feminist tradition. The whole language e.g. "non normative paradigms" and the like is a giveaway that this is coming from postmodern studies. And she quotes prior research by real feminist scholars.

Here's her twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/ariellebea

If she's a troll, she's so committed that she's been trolling constantly for months. And consider this post:

A non-normative paradigm would be something that does not reinforce normative realizations of what a programming language is. That is to say, not whatever paradigms (OOP, functional, logic, etc) and programming languages you would consider standard (Java, C++, Ruby, Python, to list a few). The ideas is that the standard, normative, concepts reinforce the values and ideologies of societies standards. Currently, there exist projects built in response to normative programming languages and standard computer science, check out mezangelle for an example. In many ways this falls under the scope of critical code studies, as I am asking questions about the cultural, social impact of normal programming constructs.

It's way too academic for an anti-feminist trolling effort. And mezangelle that she refers to is a real project. Here, she makes a categorization error showing off her non-critical thinking: Mezangelle is not a programming language, it's an "artistic" language which mixes words, ACSII art, emoticons and snippets of real programming code:

mezangelle mixes English, ASCII art, fragments from programming language source code, markup languages, regular expressions and wildcard patterns, protocol code, IRC shorthands, emoticons, phonetic spelling and slang. It is a polysemic multi-layered language that remixes the basic structure of English and computer code through the manipulation of syllables and morphemes. Like the related Codework of jodi, Netochka Nezvanova, Ted Warnell, Alan Sondheim and lo_y, it bears some resemblance to hacker cultural 1337 / leet speak and Perl poetry

A large amount of effort doesn't mean it's genuine. Hell, the FATAL rulebook is over a thousand pages long, but that is far from a serious piece of work.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Tell that to the people who have been playing FATAL for years. Srs bzns.

[misko27]

Every day I try to make someone think about banging who would not already be thinking abou tit.

Subversion detected. Cleansing.

Activating Squad "Freud's Revenge" to apprehend suspect.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I ... ok guys there are drones hovering outside looking in the windo

[Reelya]

I saw that parody feminist language that satirized the need for a feminist language, and it said exactly the same things these people are saying @_@ If the satire implements exactly what the satiree (?) wishes for, is it still satire?!

Is this not the same satire? I'm pretty sure it's just someone being very committed to the joke.

No, the Hastac project was the inspiration for the satire. The Hastac people are very much working within the postmodern feminist tradition. The whole language e.g. "non normative paradigms" and the like is a giveaway that this is coming from postmodern studies. And she quotes prior research by real feminist scholars.

Here's her twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/ariellebea

If she's a troll, she's so committed that she's been trolling constantly for months. And consider this post:

A non-normative paradigm would be something that does not reinforce normative realizations of what a programming language is. That is to say, not whatever paradigms (OOP, functional, logic, etc) and programming languages you would consider standard (Java, C++, Ruby, Python, to list a few). The ideas is that the standard, normative, concepts reinforce the values and ideologies of societies standards. Currently, there exist projects built in response to normative programming languages and standard computer science, check out mezangelle for an example. In many ways this falls under the scope of critical code studies, as I am asking questions about the cultural, social impact of normal programming constructs.

It's way too academic for an anti-feminist trolling effort. And mezangelle that she refers to is a real project. Here, she makes a categorization error showing off her non-critical thinking: Mezangelle is not a programming language, it's an "artistic" language which mixes words, ACSII art, emoticons and snippets of real programming code:

mezangelle mixes English, ASCII art, fragments from programming language source code, markup languages, regular expressions and wildcard patterns, protocol code, IRC shorthands, emoticons, phonetic spelling and slang. It is a polysemic multi-layered language that remixes the basic structure of English and computer code through the manipulation of syllables and morphemes. Like the related Codework of jodi, Netochka Nezvanova, Ted Warnell, Alan Sondheim and lo_y, it bears some resemblance to hacker cultural 1337 / leet speak and Perl poetry

A large amount of effort doesn't mean it's genuine. Hell, the FATAL rulebook is over a thousand pages long, but that is far from a serious piece of work.

Straw man argument. I stated that the language used is legit, not the number of words churned out. And the cited scholarship is also legit, unless every postmodern feminist since the 1970's is also in on the joke.

So, yeah, the main evidence is that she correctly uses postmodern terminology, in a way that doesn't sound like a parody, she doesn't trot out things like "0 and 1 are sexist because 1 is phallic, lol". And the tradition of feminist rejections of formal logic is REAL, not something she made up.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Not just the ones after 1970. All the feminists as far back as 1299 were actually bored monks in cloisters scribing up anti-male tracts and signing female names to them.

[Reelya]

Just reading Karen Barad's Posthumanist Performativity which is apparently the basis of Arielle's thinking.

It's very hard to parse. She's talking about "matter" but mixes up matter / concern (as in "that matters"), matter as in "the matters before this meeting" and matter as in "physical stuff", like these three uses of the word must somehow gel together or we're not doing language right.

Ok, skimming this text, the apparent point is that the author rejects the division of the world into physical "stuff" and the world of words we use to describe the stuff, which she refers to as "representationalism". Apparently, this divide of the world into things and language to describe things can be transcended by a feminist rejigging of the entire body of philosophy.

I don;t really want to read the whole thing, but performativity is how what we think and say influences the real world, and "posthuman" probably means cyber or after the singularity. So this is maybe a sci-fi postmodern idea that in the future we will be able to beam ideas directly into peoples heads and into computers, thus overcoming the limitations of language, and sexism.

[nenjin]

Ok, skimming this text, the apparent point is that the author rejects the division of the world into physical "stuff" and the world of words we use to describe the stuff, which she refers to as "representationalism". Apparently, this divide of the world into things and language to describe things can be transcended by a feminist rejigging of the entire body of philosophy.

Yeah, philosophically I don't see how it holds up. If we can't define anything because that's part of the male-centric-manocracy, what exactly would be different by nebulous definitions created by a woman? This almost sounds like re-inventing the wheel specifically so it can be said that a woman did it instead of a man. Well, fine. But if it ends up more complex, less elegant and less applicable, I don't think she'd really be advancing the cause of women or feminists by doing so. The fact that any system she's designing where you need to go back and introspect all your objects because you initially wrote them as generically as possible doesn't sound like a feat of computing. It sounds like doing the work twice for the sake of a philosophical argument.

[GreatJustice]

I saw that parody feminist language that satirized the need for a feminist language, and it said exactly the same things these people are saying @_@ If the satire implements exactly what the satiree (?) wishes for, is it still satire?!

Is this not the same satire? I'm pretty sure it's just someone being very committed to the joke.

No, the Hastac project was the inspiration for the satire. The Hastac people are very much working within the postmodern feminist tradition. The whole language e.g. "non normative paradigms" and the like is a giveaway that this is coming from postmodern studies. And she quotes prior research by real feminist scholars.

Here's her twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/ariellebea

If she's a troll, she's so committed that she's been trolling constantly for months. And consider this post:

A non-normative paradigm would be something that does not reinforce normative realizations of what a programming language is. That is to say, not whatever paradigms (OOP, functional, logic, etc) and programming languages you would consider standard (Java, C++, Ruby, Python, to list a few). The ideas is that the standard, normative, concepts reinforce the values and ideologies of societies standards. Currently, there exist projects built in response to normative programming languages and standard computer science, check out mezangelle for an example. In many ways this falls under the scope of critical code studies, as I am asking questions about the cultural, social impact of normal programming constructs.

It's way too academic for an anti-feminist trolling effort. And mezangelle that she refers to is a real project. Here, she makes a categorization error showing off her non-critical thinking: Mezangelle is not a programming language, it's an "artistic" language which mixes words, ACSII art, emoticons and snippets of real programming code:

mezangelle mixes English, ASCII art, fragments from programming language source code, markup languages, regular expressions and wildcard patterns, protocol code, IRC shorthands, emoticons, phonetic spelling and slang. It is a polysemic multi-layered language that remixes the basic structure of English and computer code through the manipulation of syllables and morphemes. Like the related Codework of jodi, Netochka Nezvanova, Ted Warnell, Alan Sondheim and lo_y, it bears some resemblance to hacker cultural 1337 / leet speak and Perl poetry

A large amount of effort doesn't mean it's genuine. Hell, the FATAL rulebook is over a thousand pages long, but that is far from a serious piece of work.

Straw man argument. I stated that the language used is legit, not the number of words churned out. And the cited scholarship is also legit, unless every postmodern feminist since the 1970's is also in on the joke.

So, yeah, the main evidence is that she correctly uses postmodern terminology, in a way that doesn't sound like a parody, she doesn't trot out things like "0 and 1 are sexist because 1 is phallic, lol". And the tradition of feminist rejections of formal logic is REAL, not something she made up.

They aren't in on the joke, they are the joke

badum tish

...Uh, sorry.

[Dutchling]

Wait, are you telling me someone is seriously making a feminist programming language?

But it's not even my birthday :3

[Sergarr]

playing FATAL for years

In hell?

[My Name is Immaterial]

Can we please just let me forget about FATAL? Thank you.