[jimmywetnips]

I think most common languages you can either choose between a combo adjective like

Alice es activo(a)

Or alice es activ@

But honestly as engineers, we should follow the advice of making the stilted constructions. We're already trained as users to expect that anyways from all the other apps.

If it's just a monolingual app. Sure go nuts, make it read super fluidly. If you have to localize, just do it the tried and true way

[reaperducer]

But honestly as engineers, we should follow the advice of making the stilted constructions. We're already trained as users to expect that anyways from all the other apps.

I do the opposite.

Instead of training my users to accept a kludge, I take the time to make it correct, even if it's hard.

I have the luxury of full-time professional translators on staff, and I know that not everyone else does.

But I've always believed that computers are supposed to work for people, not the other way around.

[ggrrhh_ta]

In this particular case, only "está" (instead of "es") is correct. Otherwise it means that the person is an active person, instead of meaning that at the present period of time, the person can be found active/online.

[Kwpolska]

> If it's just a monolingual app. Sure go nuts, make it read super fluidly.

The Polish IM app Gadu-Gadu was monolingual. The user's gender was part of the user profile. Now, virtually all female Polish names end in -a (foreign names aside, there's maybe one or two exceptions). There's a fairly popular male name (Kuba) that ends with -a, and GG did use the feminine verb when showing the notification that he's online.

It's usually a diminutive form, but some people have this as their official name, and people are likely to use a diminutive form in your contacts list.

[ggrrhh_ta]

Also, in Chinese, the logogram might change depending on the gender: 他/她, he/she, also part of his/her

[mmis1000]

To make things even worse. There is 祂 specifically for god-like characters (for example jesus). And 牠 for animals.

[dejj]

@ as a superposition of “a” and “o”; very nice.

If gender is how we sneak conditional expressions and nondet Prolog predicates into natural languages, then I’m in.