It's an interesting coincidence that Linus' daughter gave the following highly progressive and beautiful interview on the same day Smeezekitty started this thread, and one day before his "just look at Linus..." comment:

https://opensource.com/life/15/8/pat...alds-interview

You cannot work in software development if you believe that. The Knuth quote in Myk267's sig is a good starting point for explaining why it's wrong. The other part is that almost all software development that actually gets things done is done by teams, and organizing a team absolutely is about people and their "personal feelings" (which you do not, ever, dismiss as "personal feelings"). If you're a one-person shop, you have clients.

Software development is not about code. Software development is about helping people, and the purpose of the code that is produced is to solve problems. Or, as developers call them, "requirements".

When I bought my first house, there was a slight leak at the spigot where the washing machine attached. I proceeded to start replacing the gasket ... and the fixture broke off in my hand. (I don't mean the spigot: I mean the pipe to which it was attached.) The other end was ominously corroded.

("Oh god, I am so scro-o-o-ood!"), I said, as I "let my fingers do the walking." Any plumber had me where they wanted me.

Twenty minutes later, the guy shows up with his assistant. Deftly, he popped the cover (a piece of wood) and peered at the pipes behind. "Yep, just as I thought: they're copper. This is galvanized." I looked at him blankly, wondering if he charged by the minute.

He smiled, but not condescendingly. "Your predecessor obviously didn't know that you can't attach a galvanized pipe to a copper system. I'll be back in a sec." In a couple minutes, he returned with an acetylene torch and some copper fittings. Looking positively like a surgeon now, he swiftly removed the corroded pieces, brazed in new pipes and a new spigot, and told his assistant to turn the water on.

"Should we check for leaks?" There was a brief, but icy, silence. Then, a slight smile. "My work doesn't leak," he replied. "Turn it on, please. And meanwhile, bring the ladder. I want to check up in the attic."

(Oh god, more money. I didn't ask him to look at the pipes up in the attic... I am scroo-o-oood, so scroo-o-oood... but, what can I do?) There he went, up like a squirrel, and in a few moments he was back down. "Good news," he said, "your 'Homer' never touched anything up there. Your new house has a first-grade copper piping system in good shape ... just the thing you ought to have here in Scottsdale." I blinked, and nodded, still waiting for the verdict.

A few minutes later, it came: $50. And a thick stack of business cards.

This man (who is now retired .. sorry), had 100 of my plumbing business and I passed out every one of his cards as I told and re-told and re-re-told this story.

- - -
"Software development," at first blush, is about being that man's assistant, who, I am quite sure, was competent at things like cutting pipe, brazing copper, checking for leaks and so forth. But none of those things were "the problem that I had."

I had "an emergency." Every aspect of "the plumbing process" was secondary(!) to that emergency. And this businessman understood that.

"Even if you work for someone else ... 'be a business(wo)man.'" Your career will be infinitely better for it, and infinitely more rewarding.

(I built my 23-year-old (and counting ...) software business, sundialservices.com, around the life-lesson that I learned that day from that plumber.) (P.S. "How may I help you?")

It is sometimes be revealed by usernames.

It has always been common for people to contribute and participate using their real identities. This is especially true in this age of social media.

Even more so if you want to use your contribution as professional credit.

Is it? Is "Dave Smith" a man, a woman, or some other gender? How about skin colour? Religion(spart from the obvious)?Granted, there are wsys of finding these things out sometimes but I have never felt the need to change the text of an email or an internet post due to anything like that.
I have spoken to, emailed and otherwise communicated to many people and have no idea how to work out even the heritage of their name (which could have helped, on occcasion, with pronunciation) so I still fail to understand why this comes up.
Language, of course, can be probematic but I find that being polite can at least prevent people from, quite rightly, having problems with English as the default.

Probably a white man, Christian or atheist. Picking some examples from from https://lkml.org/lkml/last100/: probably "Cristina Opriceana" is a woman of Eastern European descent, "Wei Liu" is probably a man of Asian descent. Couldn't see an example there, but someone with some variation of "Muhammad" would probably be a Muslim man. Obviously people might be using pseudonyms, so it's not something you can be sure about.

People posting under feminine names might be treated differently than those posting under masculine ones, e.g. more likely to be called a b--ch.

I fear you make too many assumptions about the meaning of a name. I don't deny that the balance of probability can be used (and generally is the only tool to be had) but assumption is almost akin to prejudice. The only thing I have learned is don't assume anything.

Good for you, but many people do assume. Similarly, even if you don't treat people differently based on their gender/race/etc, it is a thing which happens.

In conclusion, don't assume that everyone avoids assumptions like you

it's easy to deduce something (make assumptions) based on someone's username or what they write.

but it's just as easy to fake that or deliberately leave out any pointers.

never forget, we're typing, with a magical delete key, and nobody knows whether it took you as long to type this as it took to say it, or an hour.

yes, esp. in online communication, never make assumptions.

personally, i like the idea of writing letters. take your time, think before you type...

I'm not assuming anything -- I am pointing out that anybody basing what they type in a technical mailing list or forum who is deliberately changing what they type due to expectations of the age, gender, race, religion or anything else about their intended audience is doing it wrong.

My favorite example of a developer's background mattering...

https://github.com/fre5h/DoctrineEnu...mment-33023169

Pretty extreme stuff.
I'm not sure that the gender, age, race or much else about the person posting mattered though -- it was a real world issue due to their geographical location. No need either to use any different language to refer to them with or suddenly start making sexual or racial references.
I would be interested to hear from anybody who has had a need to know the age, race, gender or any other similar thing in order to be able to ask somebody how a piece of code works or whether they will likely get some code done by a certain point of time or, even, to tell them their code isn't so good.
In what way would you change your message to somebody to tell them that their code was sub-par if you knew they were black? How about if they were a trans-sexual?

Good code is good code. Bad code is bad code.

Software development IS about code

...

"Political correctness" is code for "treating people with basic dignity and respect, even if they're not 100% like you in every way."

If you see that as a bad thing, and objectionable, and problematic...well, I don't know what to say except that that the problem lies entirely with you, not with decent society that expects you to act like a decent human being.