blog: against toxicity in programming languages

Signed-off-by: Xe Iaso <me@christine.website>

blog/against-toxicity-programming-languages.markdown

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+---
+title: "My Stance on Toxicity About Programming Languages"
+date: 2022-05-23
+tags:
+ - toxicity
+ - culture
+---
+
+I have been toxic and hateful in the past about programming language choice. I
+now realize this is a mistake. I am sorry if my being toxic about programming
+languages has harmed you.
+
+By toxic, I mean doing things or saying things that imply people are lesser for
+having different experience and preferences about programming languages. I have
+seen people imply that using languages like PHP or Node.js means that they are
+idiots or similar. This is toxic behavior and I do not want to be a part of it
+in the future.
+
+I am trying to not be toxic about programming languages in the future. Each
+programming language is made to solve the tasks it was designed to solve and
+being toxic about it helps nobody. By being toxic about programming languages
+like this, I only serve to spread toxicity and then see it be repeated as the
+people that look up to me as a role model will then strive to repeat my
+behavior. This cannot continue. I do not want my passion projects to become
+synonymous with toxicity and vitriol. I do not want to be known as the person
+that hates $PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE. I want to break the cycle.
+
+With this, I want to confirm that I will not write any more attack articles
+about programming languages. I am doing my best to ensure that this will also
+spread to my social media actions, conference talks and as many other things as
+I can.
+
+I challenge all of you readers to take this challenge too. Don't spread toxicity
+about programming languages. All of the PHP hate out there is a classic example
+of this. PHP is a viable programming language that is used by a large percentage
+of the internet. By insinuating that everyone using PHP is inferior (or worse)
+you only serve to push people away and worst case cause them to be toxic about
+the things you like. Toxicity breeds toxicity and the best way to stop it is to
+be the one to break the cycle and have others follow in your footsteps.
+
+I have been incredibly toxic about PHP in the past. PHP is one of if not the
+most widely used programming languages for writing applications that run on a
+web server. Its design makes it dead simple to understand how incoming HTTP
+requests relate to files on the disk. There is no compile step. The steps to
+make a change are to open the file on the server, make the change you want to
+see and press F5. This is a developer experience that is unparalleled in most
+HTTP frameworks that I've seen in other programming environments. PHP users
+deserve better than to be hated on. PHP is an incredibly valid choice and I'm
+sure that with the right linters and human review in the mix it can be as secure
+as "properly written" services in Go, Java and Rust.
+
+<xeblog-conv name="Cadey" mood="enby">Take the "don't be toxic about programming
+languages" challenge! Just stop with the hate, toxicity and vitriol. Our jobs
+are complicated enough already. Being toxic to eachother about how we decide to
+solve problems is a horrible life decision at the least and actively harmful to
+people's careers at most. Just stop.</xeblog-conv>
+
+---
+
+<xeblog-conv name="Mara" mood="hacker">This post is not intended as a sub-blog.
+If you feel that this post is calling you out, please don't take this
+personally. There is a lot of toxicity out there and it will take a long time to
+totally disarm it, even with people dedicated to doing it. This is an adaptation
+of [this twitter
+thread](https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/1527765025561186304).</xeblog-conv>