Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ukma!rutgers!njin!princeton!njsmu!mccc!pjh
From: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The Ten Commandments for C Programmers
Message-ID: <696@mccc.UUCP>
Date: 1 May 89 18:20:33 GMT
References: <1989Apr26.191350.7151@utzoo.uucp> <693@mccc.UUCP> <1989Apr30.003346.25362@utzoo.uucp>
Reply-To: pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg)
Organization: The College On The Other Side of U. S. Route 1
Lines: 26

In article <1989Apr30.003346.25362@utzoo.uucp> henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
=In article <693@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) writes:
=>=Thou shalt make thy program's purpose and structure
=>=clear to thy fellow man by using the
=>                     ^^^
=>                     
=>Say, Henry, you won't mind if I change that to "programmers" or
=>"computeroids" or "computersaurus" or something before I hand it out to
=>my classes???  ;-)
=
=Standard pseudoBiblical usage :-) follows the English-language convention
=that masculine forms double as generic forms, even though use of this
=slightly unfortunate convention is now believed to be the moral equivalent
=of rape or child abuse (to judge by the reactions the most innocent remarks
=can produce).
=
=However, if you (un-bravely but also understandably) want to avoid attracting
=the attention of the Pronoun Gestapo, it is permissible to substitute a 
=suitably Biblical term like "creature" for "man".

The creatures in my class will *love* that!  Thanks.
-- 
Pete Holsberg                   UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Mercer College				CompuServe: 70240,334
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