There are a few reasons why a gendered pronoun might be used:
1. To indicate 'a human' as distinct from 'a machine', where 'they' is insufficiently clear
2. To refer to an actual person of known gender
3. Most European languages have a notion that inanimate objects have a gender, so they might refer to a computer or a dress as 'he' or a yacht or a book as 'her'. This makes little sense to native English speakers but can be a difficult habit to drop.
I think it's pretty clear that none of these are valid uses in this case (although I wonder if #3 might have some responsibility for the initial commit? Would be good to get some input from someone who knows more than I do about linguistics).
However, I'm not sure that 'they' is much better, because it's still anthropomorphic - it implies that the calling function is a person, which isn't true - it's a function. The correct word must be 'it' - there is no 'they' in one function calling another function.
Comments
There are a few reasons why a gendered pronoun might be used:
1. To indicate 'a human' as distinct from 'a machine', where 'they' is insufficiently clear
2. To refer to an actual person of known gender
3. Most European languages have a notion that inanimate objects have a gender, so they might refer to a computer or a dress as 'he' or a yacht or a book as 'her'. This makes little sense to native English speakers but can be a difficult habit to drop.
I think it's pretty clear that none of these are valid uses in this case (although I wonder if #3 might have some responsibility for the initial commit? Would be good to get some input from someone who knows more than I do about linguistics).
However, I'm not sure that 'they' is much better, because it's still anthropomorphic - it implies that the calling function is a person, which isn't true - it's a function. The correct word must be 'it' - there is no 'they' in one function calling another function.
"It" is correct when talking about a function.
The original complaint was a about using "he" when the antecedent was "the user."
The user calls the function directly? With what, a magnetized needle and a steady hand?