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Re:Results of Rust Survey 2016 – early draft for internal usage by kbenson on Thursday June 23, 2016 @12:18PM (#11962173)
"Guys" is a fairly complex term[1]. Its common gender association changes when used plurally from male (when used singularly) to non-gendered. Like "man", when used in place of "humanity", I believe it's a holdover from a time when it was entirely acceptable to be dismissive of half the race. As such, it's probably appropriate to be at least a little sensitive to the topic, since it's not just a matter or speech norms, but a reference to past inequality.

1: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11816/is-guy-gend...

Re:Results of Rust Survey 2016 – early draft for internal usage by alienated on Thursday June 23, 2016 @01:03PM (#11962567)
> I believe it's a holdover from a time when it was entirely acceptable to be dismissive of half the race.

Ironically, when it was entirely acceptable to be dismissive of half the race, separate words were used - explicitly calling out a difference between groups. 'Guys' as a gender neutral term is a relatively recent phenomenon, and in many ways is an equalizing term.

> As such, it's probably appropriate to be at least a little sensitive to the topic

Alternatively you could argue that it's appropriate not to be over-sensitive to common, and innocent, language usage.