I think you both are overreacting. "Something your mom could use" could easily be translated into "something a typical person could use." I don't think any girls or retired folk were dissuaded from programming by this comment.
Dissuaded by that single comment, probably not, but a constant flood of low-level sexual bias does send a message to girls that they don't belong. If you follow some of the gender-flipping reactions to pop culture, it begins to strike you just how pervasive these messages are.
The alternative "build a programming language that Dad can use" would have been much worse. I hope you see that. Unless gender bias is removed completely from our language (build a PL that your parent can use), the OP actually selected the lesser of two evils.
Wasn't aware that it was a strict dichotomy. There are plenty of ways to get the point across without gendering it. And I'm not trying to bash the OP at all. It's just that I do think it's important that we all hold each other accountable. But thanks for engaging, a lot of people don't even recognize there being a problem in the first place.
"Something your dad / grandfather / uncle" can use is just as apt. The point isn't "durr hurr you need a Y chromosome to do turing complete mathematics" its "99.99% of the population can't program. Write a language they can use"
That would offend even more as it strongly implies that "mom could never program of course, but maybe we could build a language where dad could?" If we want to be all PC about it, we should use gender neutral terms; like "something your parent figure could write programs with."
