Before you watch the video, a little context. This talk is from another era, and Guy’s leading example—defining women in terms of men—is considered by some, including myself, to be in poor taste. Why? Because unnecessarily drawing distinctions between people, especially people who are traditionally marginalized in our community, helps to drive them away.

Nevertheless, when I ask myself whether I do you a disservice by withholding this classic material from you, the answer is “yes.” Guy’s observations are deeply insightful, and they continue to exert an influence on language designs today. Therefore, I ask you to acknowledge the example as awkward but otherwise to keep an open mind about the rest of the talk.

(Also, in case you are wondering after you watch this talk: Java eventually did get generics, but it did not get operator overloading. Operator overloading in Java remains a controversial topic!)