On the contrary, this is the only acceptable response for a company. To not respond this strongly would invite more intense criticism, potentially at a national scale, as well as a toxic environment for any female engineers internally due to the company being perceived as not doing enough. This would be poisonous for recruiting where good engineering talent is at a premium, and potentially disastrous for the company as a whole if clients decide to protest not having a no tolerance attitude towards this behavior by withdrawing their business.

Whatever the views people may have here, the company was boxed in & was forced to make a strong statement. To do otherwise would be a terrifying mistake for the company itself.

Nonsense. You're exaggerating the stakes greatly.

There are people who want to believe in a great conspiracy of "politically correct" social justice warriors, who are using their political influence to bully corporations and individuals, which seems to be compatible with what you're saying. There are also people who want to believe in a great conspiracy of male software developers who think that women are at best unnecessary and at worst inferior contributors to the industry. Both are totally incorrect, but these debates often seem to proceed on the basis that these two sides are real and at war with each other, and the only choice we have is which side we want to be on. I don't think you're deliberately reinforcing this idea, but this is the effect that posts like yours can have.

Would you be willing to put your company on the line in the event of such a situation? I mentioned potentially - it is possible almost none of those possibilities happened. But if you were in the position to make risk assessments for your company, would you risk this story being picked up by national media?

Similarly, would you put your company's culture on the line?

Hmm. I'm probably the kind of person who would try to refuse being influenced by what I believed to be unreasonable pressure. I've said how I think this situation should be handled and I would be willing to defend that. I suppose I have a lot of faith in talking sensibly to people and working things out, and maybe that is naive.

Sometimes one simply has to call the bluff. If I had to say what "side" I'm on, I'd say I'm on the side of inclusivity and I'm happy to state a clear preference for the removal of gender-exclusive language from source code comments. If people think that's not enough, and that I should start firing people who do not immediately agree to do so when presented with ad-hoc pull requests to that effect, I'd also be willing to explain to those people why I won't be firing anyone on those grounds. If we believe that everyone really does divide into the two camps of totalitarian feminists and reactionary chauvinists then I'm going to be attacked by both sides. My point is that I believe that very few people hold such views, and that most people just want the right thing to happen and for nobody to get hurt in the process, and I can't imagine that I could suffer meaningful damage from holding such a view.

That's a fair position to hold - I would prefer to err on being decisive & setting a no tolerance standard on this type of behavior, but your approach/viewpoint isn't onerous. However, it is risky in that this is the type of issue that can result in lost business since there are arguably enough public details here to make a judgment call.

Is that really true?

If I were a female engineer, I would not get upset about the whole "he/she" controversy, rather I would be concerned that a temperamental manager could fire someone over something so trivial.

I know plenty of quality female engineers who would be greatly offended or disturbed, not to mention female employees overall - it isn't about the he/she controversy itself necessarily (although using male gendered pronouns exclusively has a long history of intimidating women & making them feel less welcome). It may also offend quality male engineers, who feel like the culture at the company is not as rosy as they expected. As a male engineer myself, if I saw such signs, I'd think about jumping ship simply because leadership isn't thinking at a high level about the effects of their actions (or inactions), and word has a habit of getting around (and in this case, it is visible enough as is). Just as companies don't want to associate with something less desirable most of the time, there is a lot of quality employees that feel that way about employers.

Tech companies like to bill themselves as great places to work for all prospective employees they court - this is the type of issue that is exactly an instant dealbreaker for many out there if it is not handled decisively.

> If I were a female engineer, I would not get upset about the whole "he/she" controversy

This statement is a perfect demonstration of why people accuse tech nerds of having no empathy. You really have no idea whether you would get upset or not, because you have no idea what effect a lifetime of subtle (and often overt) sexism would have on you. You do not have the experience to simply declare what your feelings would be if the tables were turned.

Is there seriously an argument to be made for a pro-"he" side? I don't understand how people both say "there should be a debate" and also "it's one word in meaningless documentation".

Oh yes there is. He and She can only refer to people while They can refer to things, too. Take for example: "if a person wishes to rungle the querts, they need to configure them such so that they will be in the state indicated by the widget manager". A sentence like that, while ultimately understandable, does cause me mild confusion at first read, and I'm sure I can come up with a more natural-sounding, but more confusing example, if I weren't so tired.

From my point of view, English is basically fucked. You've ended up with third person pronouns that are irredeemably connected with the gender of the person they describe. They is really a cludge that sort of works, but isn't quite a drop-in replacement for good old She and He.

I'd use They when the text can flow naturally with it, but drop to She/He when it starts sounding ambiguous or use any other kind of description. If writing instruction manuals, I'd use You to refer to the user at all times, or just drop to passive form and not mention people's genders at all.

There's probably an argument for it, yes. I can't imagine that it's a very good one, but I imagine that it exists. (There's always an argument for the status quo, which is "this is how we've always done it", and there's certainly a tradition of using "he" as a singular pronoun).

In any case, I am contrasting "debate" with "we would fire you for not agreeing with us". Debate does not imply that both sides are equal, but it does mean that people are given the opportunity to hear both sides of an argument and decide what they want to do. If Ben Noordhuis still thinks that gendered pronouns are a good idea after this debate, he's still entitled to his opinion, but if Joyent are the owners of the project he's working on then he'll have to keep his opinion to himself when working on that project.

"He" (or sometimes alternation between "he" and "she") is stipulated in some older style manuals (I think the New Yorker still uses the latter, say).

There are also some people who seem to be under the impression that singular they is a neologism created by an imagined political correctness conspiracy (of course, they're wrong; it's been in use for over five centuries).