Employees at billion-dollar data startup Delphix are holding a hackathon on Juneteenth to remove biased terms from their code

Advertisement
Employees at billion-dollar data startup Delphix are holding a hackathon on Juneteenth to remove biased terms from their code
Jedidiah Yueh, founder and CEO of DelphixDelphix
  • Delphix employees organized an Inclusive Language Hackathon that will take place this Friday — Juneteenth — to replace racist or ableist terms in the company's codebase with more inclusive words.
  • Some examples include replacing "whitelist" and "blacklist" with "allowlist" and "denylist" and replacing "he" and "him" pronouns with gender-neutral ones like "they" and "one."
  • Organizers say language in software is important because it not only impacts the code itself, but the way employees talk about the product with their teams and customers.
Advertisement

Employees at unicorn data application startup Delphix are holding a hackathon during the Juneteenth holiday on Friday to make the terminology in the company's codebase more inclusive by eliminating racially charged or ableist language.

The idea follows the company's previous work to remove gender specific pronouns from its documentation starting in 2017. Its documentation, which explains how to run and set up code, had often previously refer to the person running the code with he/him pronouns, excluding female or nonbinary people.

Delphix, which has raised $130.91 million at a $1 billion valuation according to PitchBook, will focus Friday on removing technical terminology like "master," "slave," "blacklist," and "whitelist," says Sebastien Roy, director of systems platform development, following the lead of other companies and projects that have moved towards more inclusive language.

Complimentary Tech Event
Transform talent with learning that works
Capability development is critical for businesses who want to push the envelope of innovation.Discover how business leaders are strategizing around building talent capabilities and empowering employee transformation.Know More

Employees at billion-dollar data startup Delphix are holding a hackathon on Juneteenth to remove biased terms from their code
Sebastien Roy, director of systems platform development at DelphixDelphix

"These terms in software are not there because somebody meant to hurt others or create a non-inclusive environment," Roy said. Still, they can hurt, which is why companies like Delphix believe they've outlived their use.

Advertisement

Instead of knocking out some of these terms here and there, the Delphix team decided to organize a day where "make a big dent" in the problem, Roy said, which employees are deeming the Inclusive Language Hackathon.

"In the general sense, it's providing a more inclusive environment for our employees helps Delphix by retaining employees and to recruit a diverse workforce," Roy said. "This hackathon is just a small part of our overall goal of providing a more inclusive workplace."

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day that people in Galveston, Texas received the news that slaves were being freed, over two years after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

How the Juneteenth hackathon will work

On Juneteenth, hackathon participants will look through all of Delphix's internal code to weed out racially charged, ableist, or gendered language that remains, to be replaced with more inclusive terminology.

They'll use a spreadsheet to coordinate which parts of the code each person will focus on work on and, at the end of the day, participants will hold a summary meeting to learn what everyone has accomplished and understand the impact of those changes.

Advertisement

One common example are the terms "master" and "slave." "Master" frequently refers to the main version of the code that controls the "slaves," but inclusivity advocates have proposed replacements like "primary and "secondary," "leader" and "follower," and "active" and "standby."

Likewise, "whitelist" and "blacklist" are ways of filtering specific types of data, where the desired data goes on the "whitelist" and the unwanted data goes on the "blacklist." Delphix and others have started using "allowlist" and "denylist" instead, which is also more descriptive.

The pronouns "he" and "him" can be replaced with gender neutral ones like "they" or "one."

Documentation also often refers to terms like "sanity check," which refers to a run-through of the code to make sure it's working properly, but advocates say that that can be offensive to people with mental illness or disabilities. Instead, those terms can be replaced with terms like "expected," "unexpected," "coherent," "incoherent," "reasonable," and "unreasonable."

"These are terms that imply bias or charge with context that could make people feel a certain way," Roy said, "And we want to make people feel like they're on the same level playing field as others and make them feel like they could be their best selves."

Advertisement

Plus, language in the code doesn't just stay in the code. The way engineers talk about their processes could make its way into daily conversation, said Matt Yeh, senior director of product marketing at Delphix. He says that allowing these terms in code have "a subtle effect in shaping the language outside of the actual product."

Employees at billion-dollar data startup Delphix are holding a hackathon on Juneteenth to remove biased terms from their code
Matt Yeh, senior director of product marketing at DelphixDelphix

"It potentially reverberates into how we talk about our software and how we talk with our customers," Yeh told Business Insider. "The language embedded in the actual code, there's always potential for it to get reflected in other things."

In addition, these terms are often vague, while new terminology can more accurately reflect what the code actually does.

"From a practical standpoint, this can improve the ability of people who are new to the technical space to learn about it and be able to contribute to it and not learn from this jargon that's not clear," Roy said.

Advertisement

In regards to Delphix's own efforts on diversity and inclusion, the company said that it's working to improve its hiring practices to reduce bias in its interviews and job descriptions. The leadership team is also working to review promotion decisions, ensure equitable pay, and promote diversity across the entire organization. It also regularly sponsors and attends conferences that support workplace inclusion and STEM education for under resourced high school youth.

Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request.

{{}}