Jan 4, 2006

You're not bad...for a girl...

In response to http://news.php.net/php.internals/21374 I offered up a fairly simple extension dubbed "callable" (note, I never wound up dropping this in PECL) which overrides the builtin is_callable() function to call $object->__callable($methodname) in order to determine if a __call() overloaded object is actually capable of calling a particular method.


Those who wanted the funcitonality were happy to have the code and it brought the already-too-long discussion to a close saving list traffic for more important topics.


That same day, one of the list lurkers sent me an email which included the following.....quizzical paragraph:


Not to sound chauvinistic or anything and not meant to be, but you are a woman, I'm very impressed with the code, it's direct and too the point, not what I would expect from someone of your gender as most female programmers I've come across are into a lot of fluff and eye-candy and not so much in pure functionality.

Now, I'm about 95% certain that he did, in fact mean it as a compliment. And while I appreciate the....hrmmm praise isn't quite the right word...good wishes, I'm not really really clear on just how appreciative I should be. It's a little like what I would expect hearing "You're remarkably well spoken for a black person*." would be like... Or something.... How do you successfully answer a comment like that? Is it even possible?


*Not the cliche'd expression, but my liberal-guilt won't let me use it, even as an example of poor taste.