The problem is that “later on” often means “never” — and doesn't do anything to help with the damage before it happens. Abusive people are also commonly adept at finding ways to imply they did that without really doing so sincerely, as well as pushing boundaries so there's more chaff for them to hide behind (“<other person> joked about x, why is y worse?”).

What a CoC does is give clear expectations for everyone in the community. It makes the discussion easier because it's a simple “Don't do this, rule #3” rather than having to lawyer about whether something is a problem after things have already become heated. This doesn't solve everything, of course, but setting a baseline cuts out a lot of tedious lower-level stuff and helps set a climate which discourages bad behaviour by removing the lower level stuff which can encourage it. That guy who infamously used a porn image in a conference slide probably didn't just wake up one morning and decide to do that but was in a subgroup where sexualized comments & humor was normalized.

> What a CoC does is give clear expectations for everyone in the community.

That's my whole point; that CoCs might be a necessary step for social changes that quite many people don't understand and/or master yet (e.g. custom pronouns) is understandable. But apologize after you hurt someone is something I (and, I assume, most people) was taught when I was 4 y.o. and should be widely applied. What will be next, a little panel reminding you to say "hello" and "goodbye" when you come in and leave, or "don't forget to say thank you" next to the cashier?

The world is a much less friendly place than most kindergartens. Saying sorry both acknowledges culpability and results in losing face. An adult issuing a true apology to another adult is very rare.

> The world is a much less friendly place than most kindergartens. Saying sorry both acknowledges culpability and results in losing face. An adult issuing a true apology to another adult is very rare.

If that's your experience I feel bad for the toxic environments in which you must be immersed.

Just this week I witnessed one of my co-workers apologize to another, publicly, in front of a number of their fellow colleagues, for behaviour they regretted.

And yes, it was a genuine apology. And no there was nothing to be gained for this individual, personally, by delivering that apology.

I myself have both given and received many apologies in my professional career. If that's rare, it's only because most people, most of the time, don't behave in a way that warrants apologizing later.

It's precisely the kind of fatalism you express, here, that leads to bad behaviour going unaddressed.

Misplaced pity is an odd thing to add to your comment.

We try, for ourselves and with our children, to make a distinction between "I'm sorry" and "please forgive me" -- saying "I'm sorry" is an expression that you wish that something hadn't happened, or had happened differently. It's not (or at least it shouldn't be) an admission of a moral failing.

Asking for forgiveness, on the other hand, is admitting that what I did was wrong. That's not necessarily the same thing that I'm sorry about -- as an example, "I'm sorry that ball hit you on the head, please would you forgive me for not being careful enough?". This separates my actions from their consequences in a way that acknowledges their affect on other people.

And I'm quite glad that in most situations I find myself, someone being willing to admit when they are wrong is considered a positive. It builds trust, and shouldn't result in losing face.

> Saying sorry both acknowledges culpability and results in losing face.

That sounds awfully weird for me coming from an environment where accepting your errors and apologizing is seen as the only honorable option; "noblesse oblige" and catholicism-impregnated traditions I assume.

My point was simply that these aren't necessarily as universal as people might think, especially in a large multi-national community like open source. There's a fair amount of cultural variation on what's considered worthy of an apology and a CoC can be helpful simply by getting people to think about that up front rather than after something happens.

> At this point, it's sad that people would need a CoC just to follow the most elementary of courtesies.

If the body tasked with enforcing the CoC is the same one being an abusive penis, its not going to change things.

However, I agree that its pretty shocking that people seem to struggle with the basics of human interaction. Yes social conditions are indeed real(the autism spectrum et al), but that's not a cover for being a weapons grade tool.

more importantly the is no excuse to indulging these behaviours. If you see it, call it the fuck out. I don't mean "be the ally" pussy footing around. Empathise with the belittled party and redress the person(s) being a shit. Yes it will be touch and go, but unless you set boundaries, "founders" and "thought leaders" will continue to be obnoxious shits who chase the fun out of everything.

Personally, I think trying to understand why the dynamic is occurring is more helpful. Sure, sometimes people are just assholes and need a dressing down, but more often things are a bit more complex - they should still be confronted about their behaviour, but just giving them a lashing may not help the situation compared to talking through why they are acting that way.

> compared to talking through why they are acting that way.

I agree empathy must be deployed to everyone here. However there are some things that must be stopped at source. I leave that judgement to the reader.

Stopping at source can be more effective if done with empathy.

I'm all for taking the high road and not escalating but sometimes, with people like this person appears to be, you have to get in their face when they attack you. They perversely respect that.

Edit: Ignore what I posted as it clearly highlights I was wrong

I removed the analysis as I contributed effort to the wrong person, which invalidates my argument.

The person you've highlighted as doing everything is Matthew Flatt, a professor at the University of Utah, not Matthias Felleisen, whose contribution in code is not the reason he is indispensable to the project.

Shit my BAD! I'll update my post to correct things.

Is it really doxxing? I made what was publicly available and it wasn't slanderous, it just invalidates my argument.

For what it's worth, if you wanted to make the argument that Racket the programming language would not exist without Matthew Flatt, you'd be undoubtably correct. He is more-or-less the sole maintainer of the compiler, but fortunately for everyone involved is a very nice guy.

Who is Matthias Felleisen to Racket?

Matthias was the PhD advisor of Matthew Flatt and Shriram Krishnamurthi at the time where (what would eventually become) the Racket project started. Virtually all of the core contributors are either his PhD students over the years, or students of his former PhD students after they became professors. He's the project's steward, being the person primarily responsible for securing grant funding for the work that goes into Racket, and the project's "visionary" (as much as such a thing can really exist), being the one who has most explicitly philosophized the concept of "language-oriented programming" (though there are plenty of other researchers now interested in the subject, including independently from Matthias' lineage). It'd be difficult not to understate the importance he has had to the careers of his former students (both in terms of the research they've done and in terms of his support in doing the politics necessary to have a successful career in academia).