Microsoft's ill-chosen magic constants
Jul. 13th, 2012 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mjg59Paolo Bonzini noticed something a little awkward in the Linux kernel support code for Microsoft's HyperV virtualisation environment - specifically, that the magic constant passed through to the hypervisor was "0xB16B00B5", or, in English, "BIG BOOBS". It turns out that this isn't an exception - when the code was originally submitted it also contained "0x0B00B135". That one got removed when the Xen support code was ripped out.
At the most basic level it's just straightforward childish humour, and the use of vaguely-English strings in magic hex constants is hardly uncommon. But it's also specifically male childish humour. Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that software development is a boys club where girls aren't welcome. It's especially irritating in this case because Azure may depend on this constant, so changing it will break things.
So, full marks, Microsoft. You've managed to make the kernel more offensive to half the population and you've made it awkward for us to rectify it.
At the most basic level it's just straightforward childish humour, and the use of vaguely-English strings in magic hex constants is hardly uncommon. But it's also specifically male childish humour. Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that software development is a boys club where girls aren't welcome. It's especially irritating in this case because Azure may depend on this constant, so changing it will break things.
So, full marks, Microsoft. You've managed to make the kernel more offensive to half the population and you've made it awkward for us to rectify it.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-14 01:28 pm (UTC)It's something that grows on your psyche like a cancer. The first post or code comment you read doesn't bother you, nor the second, nor the hundredth. But slowly it seeps in. You're not one of us, you're the outsider, you're an alien. You don't process it consciously, it just blossoms slowly into awareness inside of you.
This is the reason free software and open source communities hemorrhage female developers unless they take active code-of-conduct policies. The subtle, constant message broadcasting you're not welcome. You're too sensitive. You're too emotional. You read too much in to things.
Some free software projects have pockets where they've managed to foster good relations and make things a bit better, like GNOME Love and Fedora and Debian Women. And even the establishments of these has been controversial, as the harassers argue that their rights are being violated and that some vague principle of equality is not being respected. The message continues to blare.
So eventually most women go elsewhere, not willing to be subjected to the subtle abuse that pervades the FLOSS ecosystem. The optimism that drives their early endeavours slowly trickles away from a thousand pinpricks as they realize the community is a cesspool that abandons them at the first opportunity.
Maybe you're okay with being the alien. I was once. But it gets old. I am utterly grateful that people like Matthew have continued to stand up and fight for better behaviour in the community. He's one of many lovely people who have tipped the balance for me staying in the community by not being afraid to confront these issues, and has helped me to see that I'm not screwed up for seeing this behaviour as exclusionary or for recognising it as poison.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-14 08:38 pm (UTC)There's a big difference between "*You* are being too emotional" and "Women are too damn too emotional." I don't get upset or feel discriminated against by the former (though it does make me feel a bit alien for the moment, but I try to rationalize that and just let it pass). Of course I would be upset and feel discriminated against by the latter. Again, I don't go around expecting or looking to be offended. If it happens in spite of that, then I'll take it from there.
It's something that grows on your psyche like a cancer.
I understand what you're saying, don't think that I don't. White people accusing me of looking American Indian (and it is an accusation, not just any random comment, that has come out of too many mouths too many times) has also grown on my psyche like a cancer. Look my DW over for even five minutes and you'll see that. So I know what it's like to be disenfranchised by an entire group whose entire claim to fame is that they aren't like you and that you aren't like them. Maybe it makes you want to curl up into a ball and say, "It's impossible, I should give up, I can't change this".
And you know what? You can't. All the discrimination we go through as women and as part of any other group not supported by larger, stronger and often paler majorities will go on longer than we'll be able to wait for it to change (chances are, we'll long be dead and gone before that happens); in the meantime railing about it won't change a thing. People who don't rail about it but simply highlight the problem like Matthew does might, and for their ability to not just start the discussion but keep it rolling in a diplomatic fashion, I applaud them; I just don't think it's my line of work.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-17 08:28 pm (UTC)Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-18 03:28 pm (UTC)You may think that this is proof that men are so cold/biased toward woman's feelings/emotions/reactions that I'm not the one who should stand back when they call me on my more emotional moments, but honestly, I can get that way myself with either sex (especially in the workplace, and even more especially if I'm the person in charge). Plenty of men have cried in front of me, not just women, but often even the men crying will just make me feel stunned and impatient. Not that I don't cry, too (dear God, I get into times where I feel like it's all I can do to stop for even a little while); it's just that the context it's done in, and how much relevance it has to the situation and/or people at hand, bears a lot of weight for me.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-22 04:40 pm (UTC)So many logical fallacies all over this thread.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-23 01:08 am (UTC)So many quack quack quack Newspeak
You know what? I can't hear you for that great big roaring river of politically correct bullshit mucking up your reply.
All other women can be offended all they want, comrade. It's none of my business. Wait, Five Minute Hate is starting - better run before you lose that cookie you think you just earned.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-08-31 09:34 pm (UTC)Get with the program. This is not an individual problem where everyone can just walk away, this is a STRUCTURAL problem which will not go away if we don't do something about it.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-09-01 05:29 am (UTC)I'm not denying there's a problem. I suffer though the effects of sexism directed at me routinely in my line of work, which believe it or not is not street-walking, and I'm as hurt and angered by it as any other self-respecting woman would be. I'm tired of being the voiceless decoration who will annoy men by her very presence if she ever stops smiling for a moment, because the whole point of having a woman around is she should never stop smiling for a moment regardless of how bad anyone treats her, so if she ever does stop smiling, boy, she better watch the fuck out.
I certainly don't work with the flawlessly sexism-less men Marissa has apparently been surrounded by all her working life. Neither do most women.
Problem is, in the real, non-cupcake-fueled world, to "get with the program" you will almost invariably put yourself out of a job if by getting with the program you mean "start coming back at men who harass and bother you". Most of them are our bosses or just higher up in the food or brown-nosing chain, so what program did you want us to get with, exactly, since that one's not gonna work?
The one where we wander the streets looking in vain for all-female workplaces in order to safely stop being harassed for the first time in our fucking *lives*, or was there another program you haven't been kind enough to mention yet?
Oh wait, you don't have an answer for that because that's not why you're up in my face. You're up in my face because you want me to feel a more tender compassion for the women, whomever they are, who are upset by an overlooked and arguably off-color line of code buried in some obscure source that Matt highlighted in order to start exactly the discussion that we are having here. I think women have bigger things to worry about than than particular line of code, though, and if you haven't gotten that message by now, you're never going to.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-19 11:26 pm (UTC)This entire debate is retarded. All that should matter is this: does the code work? If not, fix it. Otherwise, leave it be.
If someone is this thin skinned over something this harmless, how in the hell do they walk out their bloody door every day?
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-21 11:00 am (UTC)Srsly, I take your point about political correctness but there's no need to offend a whole other group of people in the process.
(I'm also a woman, and not offended by B00B135 or B16B00B5, it just tells me that some programmers can be silly, hardly news.)
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-21 06:57 pm (UTC)You need to accept that you are the problem, not us.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-22 07:33 am (UTC)Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-22 03:18 pm (UTC)Certainly as a disabled person I hear the term disablism regularly, I've not encountered ablism being used as a term by the disabled community. For example, there is "blogging against disablism day" each year.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-22 04:43 pm (UTC)Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-27 11:38 am (UTC)> does the code work? If not, fix it. Otherwise, leave it be.
Are you even a programmer?
> Yay! Political correctness destroys another environment.
Also known as "empathy", but whatever.
Re: get real
Date: 2012-07-25 10:18 am (UTC)Re: get real
Date: 2012-08-31 09:37 pm (UTC)Just try to apply empathy. Is it really that difficult?