On Mon, Jan 30, 2023 at 6:53 PM Maxime Devos <maximedevos@telenet.be> wrote:

> On 30-01-2023 20:56, Aleix Conchillo Flaqué wrote:
> > [...] Maxime found the time to review a quite big PR and added a
> > bunch of useful comments. Reviewing that PR took a lot of effort and I
> > just felt better after fixing all the comments made. I was even
> > surprised he (I'm assuming this pronoun) did.
>
> Unfortunately you are assuming incorrectly; s/he/she/. (*)
> For future reference, 'they' is usually a safe ‘default’ (except when
> they hate that, eergh).  At least, for some values of 'usual' that might
> not be representative.
>
>
Oh, well. I confess I did a quick Google search but I clearly assumed
incorrectly based on the results, my bad. I don't hate using they at all.

> [...] And my feeling is she just wants things to
> > be as correct as possible, which is quite important, especially in a
> > programming language.
>
> That's it, yes.
>
> > Exchanging messages in a written form has its own challenges (your mood
> > on that day, maybe you phrase things in a way that can be misunderstood,
> > ...). So I will stop writing and just leave you all with a smiley face.
> :-)
> >
> > Best,
>
> Something I would like to add here, is that these kind of emotional
> challenges often appear self-inflicted to me.  I mean, the mailing list
> is a rather technical medium for technical talk about technical things.
> There is no emotional stuff there unless you add it or you assume it.
>
> Instead of analysing technical messages on the ML for whether there's
> some emotional hidden message behind it, can't we just assume that any
> technical messages are just technical, meaning literally what's written
> in them?
>
>
That's how I see it too and that would be ideal.


> I'm not saying that the emotional stuff should be completely forbidden,
> but like, with a little care you can separate the technical from the
> emotional, e.g.:
>
>     ‘[Oh, I wanted that feature for a long time!]
>
>      This won't work at all because it assumes frobs are never barzed,
>      yet they are when [...].  I'm thinking you'll need a completely
>      different approach, though I don't have a clue what this approach
>      would be.
>
>      [Keep up the good work!]’
>
> (The [...] lines are nice, but optional.  Also the brackets are
> optional.).  Like, the second paragraph just says it won't work at all
> because $reasons.  While very unfortunate, there is no malice anywhere;
> it's just technical stuff.  Likewise, the first [...] and last [...],
> while emotionally positive, are irrelevant for the evaluation of the
> technical middle part.
>
>
Again, that's how I try to approach it as well. And actually I believe I
tend to be emotional by adding positive messages as the ones you just
mentioned. Even though they are irrelevant I like to think people like to
read nice things after all (at least, I do).


> > Aleix
> >
>
> (*) There are people who apologise after making such mistaken
> assumptions, which I suppose is a quite reasonable course of action to
> take in general, but please don't in this case?  It just seems
> embarrassing to me.
>

Since you made it optional with ?... I apologize. I don't mind
embarrassing myself (and I hope I don't embarrass you).

Best and keep up the good work!

Aleix