Hi,
> it quite rigidly describes gender roles for translators and programmers...
> it's easy to see this as confirmation that coders should be men.
The introduction [1] explains that this is just a convention.
The more general concept in the area of software design is the "persona" [2][3].
It is useful because software can have more than 2 types of users (= personas).
In fact, gettext already has 3 types of users:
- The end-user who wants internationalized messages.
- The programmer.
- The translator.
The common practice is to attach some first names.
For example, in the GNU gettext manual, we might use:
- Andrea, the end-user.
- Kevin, the programmer.
- Charlotte, the translator.
I wouldn't mind if the GNU gettext manual was changed to use first names
instead of "he" and "she", but *please* choose better first names!!!
First names to avoid are those for which neither "he" nor "she" can universally
be used because they apply to both boys and girls:
- Andrea (male in Italy, female in Germany),
- Eike, Kim, Alex (male or female in Germany),
- Camille, Claude, Dominique, Stéphane, Maxime (male or female in France),
- and so on.
Bruno
[1] https://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Introduction.html
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_(user_experience)
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User-centered_design#Analysis_tools
