[HN Gopher] Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source co...
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Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
Author : microsoftedging
Score : 135 points
Date : 2025-06-14 08:15 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vidarholen.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vidarholen.net)
| holowoodman wrote:
| Theory: the shift towards lesser swearwords is a sign of
| corporatization, making the linux source a soulless bland
| hellscape of confirmity.
| endmin wrote:
| It already was when they banned Russian maintainers.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Are you implying that the ban has something to do with
| blandness and conformity?
| GJim wrote:
| edmin is a newly created account with one comment.
|
| Their comment is typical of a Russian troll starting a new
| account. ('Poor Russian victims' etc.).
|
| You can waste time ridiculing them, though I just ignore.
| endmin wrote:
| whatever floats your boat
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Let's set Linus' personal opinion aside [1] - the fact is,
| the Linux kernel team hasn't had much of a say in that
| matter. Both the European Union and the US have sanctioned a
| lot of things related to Russia ever since the invasion of
| Ukraine, and if there is _one_ thing where "better ask for
| forgiveness than for approval" is a very, very bad idea it is
| straying too close to the edge of sanctions laws.
|
| These things don't just have teeth, they have _fangs_ -
| existentially threatening fangs, to add. If you are not a
| nation-state entity or backed by one with a sufficiently
| powerful military or economy (such as India and Turkey, who
| openly deal in Russian oil), it is not a good idea to cross
| any line.
|
| [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=whNGNVnYHHSXUAsWds_MoZ-
| iEg...
| endmin wrote:
| True, I see your point, though it is sad.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| But also a bit more reliable.
| darkwater wrote:
| They went up, actually. "crap" skyrocketed in the last years,
| and the rest were more or less stable.
| bravetraveler wrote:
| > They went up, actually. "crap" skyrocketed in the last
| years, and the rest were more or less stable.
|
| To their point, I would consider _" crap"_ a _lesser_ swear.
| More _" fuck"_ or _" shit"_ would counter-intuitively
| imply... certain qualities _[by not being so conformist]_
| darkwater wrote:
| And what about _damn_ then? Is that even a swear word?
| kps wrote:
| More crap in the tree is _also_ a sign of corporatization.
| bowsamic wrote:
| Strange to make such a point based on what you expect to happen
| when clicking on the link would immediately show the opposite
| to be the case. But I guess you didn't need to do that bc you
| already "knew" the swear words would fall?
| bonoboTP wrote:
| It seems like absolute count of occurrences, not normalized
| to codebase size.
|
| Even more informative would be to plot the occurance rate
| within _new_ code.
| 0x000xca0xfe wrote:
| OKR for H2: Increase edginess of Linux for a less corporate
| feel
|
| Key result: Boost occurrence of swearwords by 20%
|
| Key result: Create a new metric that tracks relative
| swearword use per line YoY
|
| Key result: Attract at least 100 comments on HN or Reddit
| about the new code
| rfrey wrote:
| Comment mastery
| Arainach wrote:
| Hopefully in a few decades the last of the people who think
| that using respectful discourse means no fun can be had will be
| gone and we can stop rehashing these threads.
|
| You're contributing to something that runs on billions of
| devices across the world and is maintained by people around the
| world of all types. If you can't describe your code, your
| reasons, and your notes politely, do better.
| javcasas wrote:
| There are two types of people: the ones that write the code,
| find the bugs (including hardware ones), find the bad design
| decisions (including the ones they wrote themselves)... and
| the ones that complain that they found a swearword in the
| source code they never see because compilation step.
|
| Or as they say in the army: do, lead, or get out of the way.
| Arainach wrote:
| There are far more than two types; all of the most
| effective programmers I've ever worked with can do
| everything you mentioned _and_ write professionally.
|
| If we have to boil it down to two types, however, I'd split
| it as "people who think they can do everything themselves
| and only the code matters" and "people who build effective
| teams capable of far more than themselves solo", and it's
| the second group that does the most impressive things.
| Being professional and respectful is quite beneficial for
| that group.
| javcasas wrote:
| It's great that you can do/lead and write professionally.
| But, in any case, writing professionally shouldn't take
| priority over doing/leading.
|
| Otherwise we wouldn't have the Linux kernel; and I bet
| the swearing guy behind it got more stuff done and made a
| bigger difference than the combination of the most
| effective programmers you have ever met.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| Yeah, if only Linux could be built by one swearing guy
| with no external contributors like Linux instead of being
| a bland swear-free corporate hellscape like Linux then it
| could be successful like Linux.
| wat10000 wrote:
| False dichotomy. "Writing professionally" is also known
| as "communicating effectively" and it is _part_ of doing
| /leading.
|
| Linus made an enormous impact, certainly. He'd have had
| an even bigger impact if he was less of a caustic dick.
|
| And before you say that there's a tradeoff involved and
| that genius technical people are just that way, look up
| Berkson's paradox.
| squigz wrote:
| I'm sure many of us have worked with that type of person
| who is very good at what they do, but also a massive
| asshole, and then people put up with it, because, well,
| that's just part of being a genius (as an aside: this
| sentiment is often applied to other disciplines too; see,
| Max Verstappen in F1 or Magnus Carlson in chess.)
|
| I learned long ago that no matter how good they are, it's
| not worth it.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Agreed. And one thing people seem to miss in this
| argument is that people can change, and generally will if
| they're in an environment that facilitates it. If a
| skilled programmer gets constant pushback because they
| act like a jerk, they'll probably figure out how to
| behave.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Linus is a great example actually, because people pointed
| out he was being too much of an asshole, and he
| eventually agreed, and he reduced the toxicity of his
| rhetoric, but you can bet if the situation called for it,
| he would still use vulgarity to get his point across.
|
| If you _totally ban_ profanity or vulgarity, all you do
| is force other words to take up the slack of what people
| use those words for, and therefore increase ambiguity.
|
| Don't lazily add profanity to the code base because you
| are a child (ie no, don't use "fuck1" as a variable name
| FFS) but if there is something truly insane going on, I'm
| going to write "This is fucking magic" in the code, and
| my coworkers will know to give that code the respect it
| deserves.
|
| Consider the fast inverse square root code. Most people
| only know it because "what the fuck" in a comment.
| Intensifiers are useful in communication.
|
| https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PrecisionFStr
| ike
|
| Your code SHOULD have few swears because few situations
| deserve an intensifier like that, but some situations
| absolutely call for it.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _I 'm going to write "This is fucking magic" in the code,
| and my coworkers will know to give that code the respect
| it deserves._
|
| This is so weird to me. You won't find blueprints (at
| least not the copies that will be handed around across
| teams and companies) marked up with "this is fucking
| magic" when an architect or structural engineer design
| something amazing. In a DM/email/SMS? Sure, that's the
| correct place to put that message.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Funny, I think Linus is a great example for the opposite
| reason. He shows that if you stop tolerating bad
| behavior, people will often change how they behave.
|
| The idea that removing vulgarity will _increase_
| ambiguity in this context is very strange. In terms of
| communication, the only use for vulgarity is to convey
| emotion. That 's not relevant here. If we ban it, maybe
| people will explain _why_ something is shit, instead of
| just saying it 's shit. Forcing other words to take up
| the slack is a feature, not a bug.
|
| I know about the fast inverse square root code. I could
| probably give a decent if somewhat vague overview of how
| it works from memory. I don't recall the WTF comment, and
| that certainly isn't why I heard about it.
|
| This is a great example of what I'm saying. Commenting
| 0x5f3759df "what the fuck?" isn't useful. It tells me the
| author was confused or amazed or something. Imagine if
| instead they had commented, "Compute an initial guess by
| negating and halving the exponent. 0x5f3759df was found
| by experimenting and seems to give a good guess in the
| mantissa bits."
| holowoodman wrote:
| I would say that a swearword where a swearword is due is
| actually effective and professional. Dancing around an
| issue and trying to be polite wastes time and effort, a
| well-placed swearword directs eyes, ears and effort to
| where they need to be.
| Arainach wrote:
| It doesn't. There are words explicitly to draw attention.
| There's TODO and IMPORTANT and WARNING. A swear is
| inferior to any of these.
| danparsonson wrote:
| Total non-sequitur - it's entirely possible to be highly
| productive _and_ also moderate your written language for a
| wider audience. What a ridiculous distinction to make.
| cool_beanz wrote:
| In a world where code is written more and more by LLMs,
| these random human generated comments might hold
| anthropological value in some future.
|
| Think of it akin to us studying cave paintings, wondering
| what whoever left their handprint on the cave wall was
| thinking when they did it. So these ancient lines of code
| might be studied in some future by our descendants, or
| whatever form we'll take. Interesting to perceive the
| author's frustration with said bit of code.
|
| By comparison LLM generated code is neat and tidy with
| clean and clear comments. Plenty of that to go around for
| the future. No need to suck the soul out of every bit of
| code we currently have.
| rascul wrote:
| > do, lead, or get out of the way.
|
| lead, follow, or get out of the way
| thrwwy451 wrote:
| It _happens_ to run on billions of devices, _after_
| corporations realized they can profit from "a (free)
| operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional
| like gnu)".
|
| > and is maintained by people around the world of all types.
|
| You seem to think that the whole world shares your definition
| of "polite". After living in a few quite different countries,
| I have to disagree. The diversity out there is huge. There's
| no point trying to solve this "problem", it's an impossible
| task.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > It happens to run on billions of devices, after
| corporations realized they can profit from "a (free)
| operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
| professional like gnu)"
|
| While hordes of people peddle that everyone should be using
| it like gospel.
|
| > After living in a few quite different countries, I have
| to disagree.
|
| Yeah dude, tell us about all the countries where cursing
| isn't impolite and unprofessional.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| While in formal professional settings it is rarer (and
| swearing at each other vs about a thing is generally
| always impolite) Russia, Australia, Iceland, Scandinavian
| countries generally have fewer issues inherently treating
| swearing as impolite vs a strong expression of emotion.
|
| There's even a comic about how common swearing is in a
| professional coding environment:
| https://www.osnews.com/story/19266/wtfsm/
| koverstreet wrote:
| > While hordes of people peddle that everyone should be
| using it like gospel.
|
| You don't get that kind of widespread usage by mere
| faddism and preaching. A lot of people had to find it to
| be genuinely better than the alternatives.
|
| Maybe the unprofessional hackers knew what they were
| doing after all.
| perching_aix wrote:
| Not consistently mutually exclusive. I consider Linux
| awful, but that doesn't mean I'd advise us to migrate to
| Windows Server.
| koverstreet wrote:
| So... you badmouth Linux, in a thread about politeness,
| and you don't even have anything positive to say about
| anything? That's some delicious irony.
| perching_aix wrote:
| Maybe you thinking that false positive remarks are a
| necessary part to politeness is your real issue with it?
| Ironic in its own way, although at this point I'm just
| consumed by the despair.
| koverstreet wrote:
| No, but I do think that generic badmouthing adds nothing
| to the discussion.
|
| Saying that you think Linux is awful without saying why
| is just... vacuous. It's pointless complaining.
| perching_aix wrote:
| So it has nothing to do with politeness then?
|
| > awful without saying why
|
| Why would I need to elaborate? You expressed that a lot
| of people hold it in high regard, I expressed I don't.
| That was exactly the extent I wanted to address it and I
| think it's a perfectly reasonable stopping point. I don't
| need to explain myself about my own impressions. To the
| extent it was relevant, I played along and that's it.
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| Hello from Spain, you cultural colonialist. Here it is
| pretty typical to curse in professional environments.
| perching_aix wrote:
| Just typical? There are places where writing down
| passwords to post-it notes is typical too, doesn't make
| it very professional, not without a great deal of sarcasm
| at the very least, or some good old bikeshedding about
| semantics.
|
| > you cultural colonialist
|
| Well at least you got that part of your insult quota
| completed for the day. People throw around terms like
| "colonialist" way too easy these days. One would think if
| colonialism of any kind, geopolitical or _cultural_ , was
| so important to you, you wouldn't so casually dispense
| it. Or is this part of your professionalism too and I'm
| just being given a taste?
|
| Gotta say, pretty weird though, the Spaniards I work with
| are normal people who can distinguish just fine when it
| is appropriate to use foul language (like in informal
| discussions between colleagues or even to clients) and
| when it is not appropriate (like in codebases or in
| formal business communications). Maybe you just work
| somewhere where the standards are low? I know that a lot
| of our own small / medium sized companies usually have
| such poor standards too, frequently accompanied by e.g.
| using native language identifiers instead of English
| ones. Product quality usually correlates, though not
| always and not consistently. Doesn't make me want to call
| the practice any more professional here, everyone
| understands that this is subpar lowbrow behavior.
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| > Just typical? There are places where writing down
| passwords to post-it notes is typical too, doesn't make
| it very professional...
|
| Nice, now with extra patronizing, just the flavor we
| inferior cultures apparently crave.
|
| > Gotta say, pretty weird though, the Spaniards I work
| with are normal people who can distinguish just fine...
|
| Ah yes, the Spaniards you work with. Let me guess, you
| can count them on one hand, right?
|
| > Maybe you just work somewhere where the standards are
| low?
|
| And there's the second scoop of condescension. Maybe I
| just work in real places with real Spaniards, not in
| whatever sanitized fantasy you've constructed.
|
| Let's be clear: I've been working in Spain for nearly 25
| years. Cursing is common here. It's a cultural norm, not
| some "unprofessional lapse" waiting to be corrected by
| the wisdom of outside standards. If you'd ever had an
| honest, open conversation with one of your Spanish
| coworkers (the kind where people don't filter themselves
| for fear of offending delicate American sensibilities)
| you might have figured that out.
| kelnos wrote:
| I'm assuming you're not Spanish, and work with some
| Spaniards in the context of a company that's not Spanish,
| or is multi-national, or something like that.
|
| Perhaps the difference you see is that the Spaniards you
| work with censor themselves because they believe you or
| others will be offended. But perhaps when it's just those
| Spaniards together, or when, say, they are working for a
| Spanish company where everyone else is Spanish, they let
| loose and are quite vulgar, because that's socially and
| professional acceptable in those contexts.
|
| I'm not Spanish either. I'm American and am very aware of
| the polite sensibilities you're talking about in
| professional settings. But even that can differ. I joined
| a previous company when it was around 50 people in total,
| and stayed with that company as it grew to around 10,000.
| When we were 50 people there was lots of in-person
| swearing and poor-taste jokes, because we were small
| enough to know what most/all people would be comfortable
| with. But as the company grew, that happened less and
| less, because people could never be sure of the audience
| for what they were saying. (I had a similar, if less
| drastic, experience at another company that grew even
| just from 15 people to 200.)
|
| This phenomenon seems entirely normal, in pretty much any
| place, though the details of what is and isn't offensive
| can be different depending on region or culture.
| wat10000 wrote:
| There's huge diversity out there in coding styles as well,
| but I'd be rightfully derided or ignored if I suggested
| that meant that Linux shouldn't have a style guide.
|
| For some reason, "tabs are banned" and "curly braces must
| be on their own line" are acceptable rules, but "no curse
| words" is Oppressive Corporate Soullessness.
| squigz wrote:
| > You seem to think that the whole world shares your
| definition of "polite"
|
| Doesn't the opposite hold true? That is, assuming the whole
| word feels the same way about swear words?
| rfrey wrote:
| I contend that you are slipping in the words "respectful" and
| "professional" and assuming the benefit of their positive
| connotations without an argument that simply omitting the
| occasional well-placed curse is indeed "professional".
|
| I think so-called "professional" speech - which I'd call
| bland and often ineffective speech - is professional in the
| same way that a suit and tie is professional. It's a uniform
| to ensure nobody stands out, and the corporation can absorb
| everybody's personality, like flour incorporated into bread
| dough. White bread, no seeds.
| Arainach wrote:
| Cursing adds nothing to the code. "// Stupid fucking hack"
| is worse than "stupid hack" (more characters while
| conveying no extra information) and much worse than "work
| around Lotus 123 leap year calculation bug"
| nilamo wrote:
| Similarly, "stupid hack" adds nothing that just "hack"
| doesn't say. And in that case, why have a comment at all?
| The code is likely obviously hacky.
|
| At least I can have a laugh while looking at the hack
| someone came up with...
| Nicook wrote:
| I contend there is a significant difference between a
| stupid hack, and a better one. The negative adjective is
| meaningful in the comment.
| kelnos wrote:
| Meaningful, perhaps, but not at all precise enough to be
| understood by everyone who might read your code in the
| future. Many people will understand the difference
| between "hack" (or even "clever hack") and "stupid hack"
| in a variety of different ways, many of them not in the
| way you intended.
|
| When I was in my 20s I would write comments like that,
| but now what I'm in my 40s I see them as entirely
| useless, aside from a way for the author to blow off
| steam. Code that others have to read is not the place for
| that.
| cool_beanz wrote:
| Adds some humanity and soul to it.
| koverstreet wrote:
| There's degrees of hackyness. Tone and emphasis are
| important parst of clear and effective communication.
|
| Something that's a mere "hack" might be something I don't
| mind, but worth being aware of and revisiting if and when
| the code becomes more complicated and has to do more
| things.
|
| A "stupid fucking hack" indicates something that could
| have only come about by a whole chain of stupidity and
| mistakes, inflicting brain damage that we're now stuck
| with, to great anguish and misery.
|
| Those things are important to highlight, if only as
| lessons in what not to do.
| Larrikin wrote:
| Then write that, none of that information is conveyed
| otherwise
| justinrubek wrote:
| And yet
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't agree. If I saw "stupid fucking hack" in a
| comment, I don't think I'd necessarily view that as a
| worse hack than if it just said "stupid hack". My main
| assumption would be that the author was in a bad mood or
| was feeling cheeky or something like that.
|
| In fact, if I was reviewing a code change with "stupid
| fucking hack" or "stupid hack" in it, I'd ask the author
| to remove it and actually explain what was going on.
| Comments should detail the "why", not the "what". "Stupid
| hack" is the "what", but I want to know _why_ the hack is
| necessary.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| //hack = I have found a way around the problem that was
| probably necessary to use and could even be arguably
| clever under the circumstances where a hack is required
| Example: When I suggested using data uri as source of
| iframe to get around domain security restrictions in FF
| and still allow you to click on links and scroll in
| iframe which using about: uri scheme did not (long story
| involving national security and identity platforms)
|
| //stupid hack = somewhat ugly thing I am doing to
| somewhat solve problem because I am perhaps not clever
| enough to think my way to solution at this time. Example
| - when I set the center of the map to be a couple decimal
| points of latitude off from where the address actually
| was because the designer wanted the address to be not in
| the center of the map, because then it would be covered
| by the search box, but slightly above the search box.
| Stupid because I bet there was another way to do it, also
| stupid because it was not exact and so we did not know
| exactly where the address was going to be drawn in
| relation to the search box, but we knew pretty closely
| where and that was good enough.
|
| //stupid fucking hack = ugly thing I am doing that must
| be done to get around problems even though as well as
| being ugly it is also less than optimal in multiple ways,
| requirement for this hack caused by third party who have
| screwed us over by their very existence which makes me
| incredibly angry Example: put span around any text node
| inside of an element rendered by React using a Ref to get
| around the Google translate bug and similar problems.
| kelnos wrote:
| Your definitions are entirely arbitrary and certainly not
| even remotely universally understood.
|
| I'd much rather a comment that succinctly but thoroughly
| describes what is going on and why a hack is necessary.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > is professional in the same way that a suit and tie is
| professional. It's a uniform to ensure nobody stands out,
| and the corporation can absorb everybody's personality,
| like flour incorporated into bread dough. White bread, no
| seeds.
|
| I take you also strongly believe then that when I waltz up
| to work in some random hoodie, sweatpants and running
| shoes, that's actually some bespoke eloquent expression of
| self, full of meaning?
|
| Reminds me to all those "he/she is wearing this/that kind
| of glasses/shoes, that means <extremely specific
| personality trait>" scenes from older movies and shows.
| Holy hyperbole.
| rfrey wrote:
| Why would you take it that I "strongly believe" that? I
| said nothing of the sort, and jumping to that conclusion
| is a reflection of your own biases, not mine.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > Why would you take it that
|
| Because you believe the quoted part according to your own
| admission.
|
| > jumping to that conclusion is a reflection of your own
| biases, not mine.
|
| Could you kindly clarify what that bias is? I'm too
| biased to see it apparently, so I'll not know until you
| put it into words.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| Vulgarity is a crutch used by those without the ability to
| communicate effectively.
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-swearing-a-
| sig...
| hack_katz wrote:
| You should really read the literature you try to post.
| From the abstract of the study the article cites (~and
| the article itself implies agreement with~):
|
| "Overall the findings suggest that, with the exception of
| female-sex-related slurs, taboo expressives and general
| pejoratives comprise the core of the category of taboo
| words while slurs tend to occupy the periphery, *and the
| ability to generate taboo language is not an index of
| overall language poverty.*" [* Emphasis mine]
|
| Edit: realized the article does make the distinction
| between the ability to generate profanity and the
| willingness to do so, which while interesting is mere
| conjecture propped up by an anecdote within the article.
| I contend there are times for profanity and times for
| avoiding it, but suggesting that because someone chooses
| profanity they must be less intelligent is perhaps a
| comfortable idea, but it may also be an elitist one.
| rfrey wrote:
| It's actually a mid-elite idea, I'd say - that
| novice/mid/elite programmer meme springs to mind. For
| sure profanity is used a ton by those some would consider
| the rabble. Then there's medi-elite who are very pure in
| their language.
|
| And then there's the academics, surgeons, and nuclear
| physicists who use quite a bit of profanity (especially
| the surgeons!) and teach their kids that profanity is a
| linguistic tool that is often super effective.
| hack_katz wrote:
| I think that's totally plausible! Especially because the
| fact is that "intelligence" is an incredibly fuzzy
| concept, such that one could be extremely intelligent in
| the STEM fields, as you mention, but then be simply
| average in linguistic ability.
|
| Accordingly, even IF the willingness and ability to use
| profanity indicated a lesser linguistic intelligence, one
| would be mistaken to then assume that a person with that
| willingness is any less of a capable professional in non-
| linguistic fields
| nomel wrote:
| Swearing linked to more intelligence, not less [1]
|
| [1] https://www.sciencealert.com/swearing-is-a-sign-of-
| more-inte...
| mystified5016 wrote:
| Yeah, you tell 'em! Anyone who doesn't conform to Corporate
| Culture and treat the dress code and code of conduct as their
| own personal Bible, upheld even on their time off, they're
| all terrible engineers and should go work on some script
| kiddie project.
| koverstreet wrote:
| Personally, I think the nicest thing I can do, for my users,
| and for the engineers who come after me, is to write code
| that works, and write it in such a way that other people can
| figure out what it does without wanting to gouge their own
| eyes out.
|
| Clearly, we do not have the same goals.
| Perizors wrote:
| It is not mutually exclusive tho
| koverstreet wrote:
| It's about priorities. I value clear and direct
| communication, and getting the job done, way more than
| mere politeness.
|
| Politeness is not the end goal. It is a means to that
| goal, if and when it enables people to communicate more
| effectively and with less friction.
| kps wrote:
| > do better
|
| I find that expression far more offensive than 'fuck' or
| 'shit'. Similarly (and non-exhaustively): 'bad take'; 'not a
| good look'; 'this ain't it'; '... not the ... you think it
| is'; '..., actually'. They're all _personal_ insults. "This
| code is crap" is fine; "You 're crap" is not.
| falcor84 wrote:
| As I see it, there's nothing offensive about "do better" -
| it's just asking the person to not repeat the same
| (ostensibly misguided) thing they did before.
|
| On the other hand, there's Kratos's "Don't be sorry, be
| better", which did hit me hard when I reached that part in
| God of War 2018. That one hit me on a very personal level.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| "Do better" when used in an online debate forecloses
| discussion. It implies that the one saying "do better" is
| the authority on what "better" is. What if I disagree?
| falcor84 wrote:
| Then you reply with "Because of the following reasons,
| doing better must entail the following actions...",
| rather than argue against the need to do better
| dogleash wrote:
| >people who think that using respectful discourse means no
| fun can be had will be gone
|
| It's not zero fun, but everyone understands it's a sign the
| vibes will be up-right, right?
|
| edit: that's not to say you don't want that, but that's what
| it is
| dogleash wrote:
| *up-tight (too late to edit)
| pwdisswordfishz wrote:
| Forget "fun". Profanity is a signal of _honesty_. Which I
| much prefer to hiding behind patronizing, obfuscatory
| euphemisms like "verifying the security of your connection"
| and processes that diffuse responsibility out of existence.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > do better
|
| No.
|
| This condescending tone is what really needs to go away. It
| reminds me of the 90s right-wing, religious puritanism about
| swears in music and movies just repurposed for a secular
| audience.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Hopefully in a few decades the last of the people who think
| that using respectful discourse means no fun can be had will
| be gone and we can stop rehashing these threads.
|
| More likely, in a few decades what you consider today to be
| "respectful discourse" will be seen as extremely offensive
| and the latest generation of fearful moralistic pearl-
| clutchers will be hoping that in the near future it's people
| like you who will be soon be gone. As long as people keep
| looking for new ways to be offended and continue wanting to
| police the language of others these kinds of topics will
| continue.
| javcasas wrote:
| I have never worked on a big corporation. But I find
| interesting about corporations forbidding swearwords in code. I
| mean, the people responsible for forbidding swearwords rarely
| read code. And if they read code with any frequency and are
| somewhat proficient at it, most likely they have their own list
| of swearwords.
|
| Also we should look to add more keywords to programming
| languages that trigger naive filters. I'm all in for another
| era of broken censorship to poke fun at the people who know
| nothing, but always have an opinion.
| gspencley wrote:
| I don't personally care about language choices in code, but
| I'll play devil's advocate and speculate as to why a business
| might be concerned.
|
| 1. Reputational harm in the event that code needs to be
| shared. Say, the code gets read in court, or an outside
| consultant is brought in who is given access to the code. The
| company likely wants to maintain the same standard of
| professionalism that they expect when their employees write
| or utter spoken language in the workplace for the same
| reasons.
|
| 2. Similar to #1 but nuanced enough to deserve its own
| mention: code is a business asset. It can be sold or licensed
| out. The company may fear that language that it deems
| unprofessional could depreciate the value of that code in the
| context of selling or licensing it to 3rd parties.
|
| Personally I think that the fuss over "bad words" is deeply
| irrational to a religious degree. The idea that arbitrary
| sequences of phones or characters will cause anyone within
| ear or eye-shot to become offended is rather absurd. But you
| can't choose what planet you do business on and, on Earth,
| there are a lot of silly people.
| toast0 wrote:
| Also 3, fear of reputational harm if the code leaks.
| Microsoft got a lot of PR for curse words in code that
| leaked, and then they locked it down.
| didntcheck wrote:
| > the same standard of professionalism that they expect
| when their employees write or utter spoken language in the
| workplace for the same reasons.
|
| Depends a lot on the culture. In the countries I've worked
| in, anyone trying to forbid profanity in the workplace
| would be laughed out of the room. The laughter would likely
| turn to anger if it turned out to be Americans trying to
| impose puritanism on another country's project
| noworriesnate wrote:
| Yeah I had a coworker who put salty MessageBox.Show debug
| messages in the code, and one day while demoing the
| software a pop up appeared that said "BITCH!!!"
|
| Needless to say the customer was not amused. So the simple
| solution is just ban the bad words from the source code.
| mcgrath_sh wrote:
| I wrote something similar in another comment. This is
| where I have seen curse words bite teams too. It is
| always the needless "joke" when debugging that surfaces.
| Just go boring. No one gets offended by "check 001."
| falcor84 wrote:
| Well, I do get offended by "check 001" - please just put
| some words there about what was checked. The worst
| offender of course is "unexpected error occurred" - my
| PTSD is so triggered by that one. Just freaking give me
| some error details!
| bee_rider wrote:
| Swears are fine and good, slurs not so much.
| mcgrath_sh wrote:
| I can swear a lot while talking. I have never written a
| curse word in my code, especially professionally. Just
| seems odd and not useful? I wouldn't be offended if I came
| across one, but it seems weird to use in a professional
| setting? A lot of the times I have seen inappropriate words
| used were not in any context and were used as a "joke" when
| logging/debugging. So "dicks 01" or "fuck me 01" instead of
| a bland "check 01" or whatever. For some reason, that seems
| much more unprofessional than a comment like "this code is
| shitty but works, need to clean up."
|
| The contextless swearing seems so unnecessary and adds
| nothing to the code, whereas a comment with a curse word in
| it reads way more human.
| gspencley wrote:
| > So "dicks 01" or "fuck me 01" instead of a bland "check
| 01" or whatever. For some reason, that seems much more
| unprofessional than a comment like "this code is shitty
| but works, need to clean up."
|
| Agreed.
|
| Context matters a lot. People say "shitty code" all the
| time. I don't see that as unprofessional. But "dicks01" I
| would probably change if I came across it in code. Not
| because I would find it offensive, but because it serves
| no purpose other than to be juvenile... and that can
| easily be counter-productive if the goal is easy to read
| and maintain code.
|
| With respects to "shitty code", I'm not even sure that I
| would personally even consider the word "shit" to be a
| swear word in 2025. I'm reminded of the TV show on
| Showtime called Bullshit (by Penn & Teller). They wanted
| to name the show "Humbug", which was considered profane
| in the early 20th century when Houdini was alive and
| famous. But Showtime didn't like it because they figured
| it wouldn't land with a modern audience. "Bullshit" it
| was.
|
| That said, the article even includes the word "crap"
| (though perhaps they are making the point that it is
| replacing other, "more profane" words). That one strikes
| me as odd. If that is considered rude and offensive, then
| surely "humbug" ought to be as well. Probably very
| culture-specific.
| rybosome wrote:
| I have a very clear memory of offending someone with the
| use of the word "crap" years ago.
|
| As a kid I worked in a restaurant that sold Cincinnati-
| style chili - noodles with sweet chili and cheese on top.
| We were encouraged to offer customers who ordered a plain
| bowl of chili this noodle concoction instead.
|
| Late one night, I had a customer order a bowl of plain
| chili. I gave her the spiel I was supposed to, suggesting
| that she try the noodle dish. She said, "so you won't
| sell me a bowl of chili?". I replied, "sorry for the
| confusion ma'am, I am happy to sell you chili. We are
| asked to say this crap because management is worried
| customers don't know what they want". She replied, "I
| don't think it's appropriate for you to use the word
| 'crap' with me". I apologized again, gave her her order,
| then was removed from my position 3 days later when she
| emailed management to complain. I had "refused to sell
| her chili", and "used vulgar language".
| kelnos wrote:
| When I was a child in the 80s (US east coast), my parents
| considered "crap" to be a bad word, and my sister and I
| got in trouble if we used it.
|
| It's funny to think of that today; I can't imagine any of
| my peers who are parents forbidding their child from
| saying "crap" (though I wouldn't be surprised if that was
| still a thing in some places).
|
| But yes, time and culture matter. "Crap" has fallen off
| the list just has "humbug" has (and "humbug" has fallen
| out of _use_ nearly entirely; I imagine the only reason
| people are familiar with it at all today is because of
| the fictional Ebenezer Scrooge), and new words have been
| added as "bad" that weren't a problem in my childhood,
| or back when "humbug" was a big deal.
| fuzzy_biscuit wrote:
| I try to be silly rather than explicitly vulgar for my
| own sanity. Having a comment about a hack that "stinks
| worse than expired chicken nuggets" or seems to have been
| "composed by a series of dartboard throws at random
| character sheets" is way more fun to me.
|
| That said, I don't take issue with cursing in code that
| remains private to the development staff. As others have
| said more eloquently than I can, the issue is when it is
| exposed to customers who might take issue and churn. Not
| a good look, so for better or worse, there are
| professions where professionalism cozies up to sterile
| language.
| thfuran wrote:
| >The idea that arbitrary sequences of phones or characters
| will cause anyone within ear or eye-shot to become offended
| is rather absurd.
|
| No more absurd than the notion that a mere sequence of
| sounds could convey any other meaning or elicit any other
| response.
| gspencley wrote:
| > No more absurd than the notion that a mere sequence of
| sounds could convey any other meaning of elicit any other
| response.
|
| I completely disagree. It is a lot more absurd. Language
| is not a priori. It must be learned. It requires both a
| speaker and a listener. Both must understand the meaning
| of the spoken word as well as other factors of
| communication, including tone and body language, in order
| to interpret and understand the communicated meaning.
|
| The idea behind a "bad word" is that the word is
| offensive no matter what. It doesn't matter what the
| dictionary definition of the word is, or the intended
| meaning of the word or the subject of the sentence that
| employed the word. The word is intrinsically "just bad"
| according to this religious belief.
|
| Objectively, sometimes there are polite ways to use a
| "four letter" word such as "fuck." The preceding sentence
| is one such example. But ... if you hold the irrational
| view that I am describing, there is no such thing. It is
| ALWAYS "bad." This is a faith based belief system. There
| is no grounding for such a position. Under such a
| position, even an academic discussion of the word would
| require it be censored for fear of offending someone.
| thfuran wrote:
| You describe it as a religious belief. Surely you are
| aware that there are actually people with religious
| beliefs? The rationality of religion aside, belief that
| there are people with religious beliefs is anything but
| irrational.
| gspencley wrote:
| > Surely you are aware that there are actually people
| with religious beliefs?
|
| Yes. What's your point? It doesn't make those beliefs
| rational. Faith is belief in something despite the
| absence of evidence. I am using the term "religious
| belief" interchangeably with "faith based belief system."
|
| > belief that there are people with religious beliefs is
| anything but irrational.
|
| I have no idea what you are trying to say in this
| sentence.
|
| - I don't "believe" that there are people with religious
| beliefs. I observe that to be the case.
|
| - I never described "belief that there are people with
| religious beliefs" as irrational.
|
| I _think_ your point might be that, because there are
| people with irrational beliefs out there we must appease
| them? Or something?
|
| I really don't know what you're trying to say here. There
| are people out there who believe in crazy things. We
| agree on that. How we should treat those people, or react
| to their existence, is entirely outside of the scope of
| conversation. It is perfectly acceptable to call an
| irrational belief irrational.
|
| We were talking about language and communication and the
| absurdity that there is a such thing as an arbitrary
| sequence of phones or characters that would cause anyone
| exposed to that to be offended. All I was saying is that
| such a belief is unfounded. I honestly don't know what
| you are trying to say.
| thfuran wrote:
| >There are people out there who believe in crazy things.
| We agree on that. How we should treat those people, or
| react to their existence, is entirely outside of the
| scope of conversation. It is perfectly acceptable to call
| an irrational belief irrational.
|
| But in this context, the purportedly irrational belief is
| that some phrases are offensive. If you accept that there
| are people who would, rationally or not, be offended by
| some phrases, then I don't understand why you would even
| make the claim that it's absurd to believe that some
| people would be offended by some phrases.
| gspencley wrote:
| > But in this context, the purportedly irrational belief
| is that some phrases are offensive. If you accept that
| there are people who would, rationally or not, be
| offended by some phrases, then I don't understand why you
| would even make the claim that it's absurd to believe
| that some people would be offended by some phrases.
|
| Now I understand why we are talking passed each other.
| Thank you for the clarification.
|
| You are reframing my premise and, in doing so, changing
| it to something I never said.
|
| Although before I explain the source of our
| misunderstanding, I want to point out the irony that you
| are coming from a philosophically "subjectivist" position
| and are defending a philosophical "intrinsicist"
| position. Usually they are two opposite extremes and tend
| to be at odds with each other.
|
| Subjectivism is the idea that perception creates reality.
| We often will hear people use language like "my truth" vs
| "your truth." Your position is subjectivist in the sense
| that you are clinging to a premise (that I never refuted
| or discussed) which states that "SOME people are offended
| by certain words, therefore 'bad words' exist."
|
| Again, that's not the premise I stated or was discussing.
| But after your clarification, this is the premise that
| you thought we were discussing.
|
| The intrinscist position states: "Certain words are bad
| by their nature. They will automatically cause ANYONE who
| hears them to be offended."
|
| it is the "intrinsicist" position that I was calling
| absurd. I never said that there aren't people who hold
| this belief. And I never said that there was no such
| thing as PEOPLE who get offended by words.
|
| I was saying that the idea that a word unto itself can be
| "bad by nature" is absurd. And I stand by that.
| thfuran wrote:
| I have made no claim of any kind about the inherent
| badness of words. I'm just saying that your claim that
|
| >The idea that arbitrary sequences of phones or
| characters will cause anyone within ear or eye-shot to
| become offended is rather absurd
|
| is completely ridiculous. There plainly do exist words
| that offend people. Maybe you meant 'everyone' rather
| than 'anyone'? But that's pretty much a straw man
| anyways.
| gspencley wrote:
| > Maybe you meant 'everyone' rather than 'anyone'?
|
| Maybe. IMO the sentence works to convey the meaning I had
| intended either way.
|
| It is not a strawman to suggest that there are people, a
| lot of them, who believe that certain words are bad by
| nature. That any given person (the fully qualified way of
| expressing "that anyone") who hears them will be
| offended, or have their soul diminished, or other bad
| things will happen as a result of hearing them. It's not
| a strawman, because I grew up around such people. They
| exist. And that's what I was talking about.
|
| And while I was not talking prescription - what we should
| do as a result of such people existing - I would ask a
| rhetorical question. WHY do people get offended by
| certain words? Is their offence rational? And how should
| rational people regard such offence?
| kelnos wrote:
| > _It doesn 't make those beliefs rational._
|
| Humans are irrational. This shouldn't be news to anyone
| who is a human. I think it is reasonable to say that
| literally every single non-infant human in existence has
| done at least one irrational thing in their lifetimes,
| including you and me. Certainly there are humans who do
| more or fewer irrational things than others, but that
| doesn't matter all that much.
|
| > _I think your point might be that, because there are
| people with irrational beliefs out there we must appease
| them?_
|
| Sometimes, yes. Often, I'd say. People's feelings
| actually do matter. Sometimes the level of irrationality
| can be high enough that one might not care too much about
| hurting someone else's feelings in calling our or
| ignoring that irrationality. But very _very_ often, we
| humans take into account others ' irrationality when
| dealing with them, in order to make interactions more
| pleasant for _both_ parties.
|
| (Anyway, I don't disagree with the sidetracked point:
| that it's not absurd for a sequence of phones or
| characters might cause offense. It seems disingenuous to
| deny the reality of "bad words". I do think that this
| side discussion on irrationality and how to deal with it
| is potentially interesting, though.)
| dp-hackernews wrote:
| If a comedian elicits a laugh from a person - who is at
| fault if the person laughs, the comedian or the person?
|
| I would argue that the person is at fault. Unless you are
| suggesting one does not have a choice whether to laugh or
| not.
|
| If that were true, then all comedians would either be
| funny, or not funny, for all people. That is simply not
| the case.
| thfuran wrote:
| Fault doesn't really have anything to do with the
| original assertion. In any case, that's a pretty weird
| take on comedy. When you hear a joke, do you ponder it,
| decide to interpret it as funny, and then deliberately
| choose to laugh?
| dp-hackernews wrote:
| People take offense, whether the other person
| intentionally gave it or not.
|
| I choose not to be offended by anything what soever.
| Humor on the other hand is a lot harder to deal with.
| josephg wrote:
| I don't think you understand why things are funny.
|
| Almost everything that gets a laugh in a comedy show
| isn't funny because it's clever. What happens is the
| comedian says something "obvious". They say something
| that you were kinda already thinking - even if you
| weren't consciously aware of it. We laugh because we're
| acknowledged and feel seen for what we were already
| thinking, and when lots of people laugh it feels good
| because we feel connected to the group. Our laughter is a
| release of tension connected to feeling part of the
| group.
|
| If you don't believe me, do the experiment for yourself.
| Watch a comedy show. When people laugh, ask yourself why
| they laughed then.
|
| My favorite example is this clip of Billy Connolly from
| back when he would play the banjo on stage. Just as he
| goes to play the first note, the string on his banjo
| snaps. There's this awkward pause, and tension in the
| audience. Then he looks up at the crowd and says "Well
| that's just gone and F-ed it, hasn't it?" And everyone
| laughs. My take is this: We were all holding tension. He
| said the obvious thing. We laugh because suddenly
| everyone realises we aren't alone in our tension -
| suddenly we're all (including the comedian) in this
| experience together.
|
| "Offensive" humour is even more subversive than people
| think because it makes it common knowledge that we were
| all thinking some thought. It's an opportunity to
| collectively acknowledge of our humanity. And that's
| something some people (perversely) want us to deny.
| sophacles wrote:
| Nonsense. You are making the assumption that laughing is
| always voluntary, and only to communicate that you find
| something amusing. Both parts of that are false - for
| example many people will laugh instinctively as part of a
| fight flight response when the perceive danger from
| others to communicate "hey im with you and not scared,
| don't hurt me more". People who hate veing tickled
| because they feel defenseless will still laugh when
| tickled, for one concrete specific.
| wat10000 wrote:
| 3. Some of your coworkers may be among that group who finds
| it offensive or jarring. Maybe this is irrational, but we
| all are. I bet there's a sequence of ASCII bytes (say, art
| of certain infamous images from the early internet) that
| you wouldn't like to stumble across either.
| nomel wrote:
| And that's what drives this ever increasing PC culture
| strangulating the world: fear.
|
| You have to fear that everyone will react like the most
| sensitive that exist (as incredible rare as they are).
| And, you have to fear those who are offended for others
| even more so, since those are the only ones you'll have a
| nonzero chance of interacting with.
| wat10000 wrote:
| You call it fear, I call it respect. I know that some of
| my coworkers may not appreciate seeing that kind of
| language, so I don't expose them to it. Simple as that.
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't like to look at it as fear, but I think fear is
| what explains a lot of the backlash toward PC culture
| (people don't like to be afraid; it's common to lash out
| at things that cause fear).
|
| I avoid offending people not because I'm afraid of being
| yelled at or cancelled; I do it because I know what it
| feels like to be offended, and I don't enjoy it, so I
| don't want to make someone else feel that way.
|
| Certainly I don't always succeed; sometimes I
| accidentally say something offensive, but we're all human
| and don't do what we intend all the time. And sometimes I
| do find it to be a chore, as the set of offensive things
| changes frequently enough, and it's hard to keep up, or
| even always agree why something is offensive.
|
| People who get offended on behalf of others are
| incredibly annoying. I can understand and respect someone
| calmly saying to me, "hey, you really shouldn't say $WORD
| because that's really rude and offensive toward people
| who are a part of $SOME_GROUP", but far too many people
| get actively angry and try to shame you, often publicly,
| if you say something bad. And then those same people
| claim that they would prefer to live in a world where
| people don't offend each other... while reacting to
| offensive words in ways that aren't likely to improve
| things.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Nah, it's not fear, it's indignation.
|
| You can see it on full display in the comments here. It's
| not, "we shouldn't have to live in fear of saying the
| wrong thing." It's, "how DARE they try to dictate what I
| can say."
|
| It's obvious when people get so upset over an idea as
| simple as "don't curse in your work." Not even "don't
| curse out loud, just "don't put it in your code." It's
| the easiest thing in the world to do. It's not like
| misgendering someone who presents ambiguously. If you're
| about to type "fuck" into your editor, don't. If that's
| where you make your stand, it's not fear.
| miki123211 wrote:
| 3) in case the code is open sourced or leaks, the company
| might get cancelled, especially if it's the n or r word.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _The idea that arbitrary sequences of phones or
| characters will cause anyone within ear or eye-shot to
| become offended is rather absurd._
|
| I find your assertion to be absurd. Do you really believe
| that no one should ever be upset by something someone else
| has said? If so, you have a huge misunderstanding of
| nearly-universal human behavior.
| perching_aix wrote:
| > I mean, the people responsible for forbidding swearwords
| rarely read code.
|
| Just plain not true.
| falcor84 wrote:
| > the people responsible for forbidding swearwords rarely
| read code.
|
| In a previous workplace, the people in charge prohibited
| swearing in our code after they had the pleasure of reading
| those swearwords in a stack trace within a log generated by
| our software, which we received attached to a complaint email
| from a major customer.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Nobody at a large corporation is going to jeopardize their
| paychecks for some petty nonconformism.
| squigz wrote:
| As a simple fellow programmer, I don't want swear words in
| code I'm working on either? If it's in the code itself, you
| should be using better names. If it's in comments, I want
| information without extraneous modifiers. Not to mention,
| what one person thinks is an innocent swear might be
| considered very harsh by others.
|
| There's just no good reason for swear words to be committed.
| You want to swear about the code, do it in a chat room or
| something.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > But I find interesting about corporations forbidding
| swearwords in code.
|
| How common is this? I work in a big corporation and we have
| no such policy.
|
| When we contribute to open source, there's a good chance
| they'll make us remove any. Internal code, though? Up to each
| team to decide.
| tayo42 wrote:
| We're not even allowed to say master branch or blacklist in
| corporations anymore lol
| BeetleB wrote:
| Nor are we, but those are not curse words.
| eyeris wrote:
| At a previous company, legend had it that swear words in code
| were banned because of an incident. A vendor was called in to
| debug a platform error which led to a code review. In the code
| reviewed, there were many expletives cussing out the vendor for
| undocumented behavior in their platform.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| In the infamous Windows source code leak, a shitload of the
| swears and profanity in comments are about "Those idiots in
| the Office team"
| perching_aix wrote:
| > a soulless bland hellscape of confirmity.
|
| I'll never understand this mentality. It's code, not some
| """self-expressionist""" art project.
| msgodel wrote:
| I think it indicates stronger internalization of the "theory"
| (using phrasing from "Programming as Theory Building.")
|
| There's a kind of "nesting" thing 10x/100x programmers do
| with code and it tends to manifest this way. The opposite
| extreme is the 0.1x programmer dequeing agile tickets they
| don't really understand and issuing broken PRs overworked
| senior dev "maintainers" LGTM merge. I think everyone exposed
| to corporate software (on both sides) is really tired of
| that.
| thewisenerd wrote:
| theory: the amount of crap is increasing. the number of fucks
| given are decreasing.
| vntok wrote:
| "Wtf" are increasing though, an effective indicator of code
| quality. https://imgur.com/only-valid-measurement-of-code-
| quality-J1s...
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| The crap graph is pretty similar to the garbage one.
| alistairSH wrote:
| TIL: Politeness makes one soulless.
|
| I don't personally care if a swear word appears in code, but I
| do care if I offend others with my use of swear words. So, I
| try to limit their use to circumstances where offense is
| unlikely. Work is rarely such a place, particularly with shared
| resources like code. I might swear in a 1-on-1 conversation at
| work, but I definitely don't drop swear words into documents
| that unknown people might see. That's just basic
| professionalism.
| ctde wrote:
| the point being that there was a time (some greybeards might
| remember) where contributing to the linux kernel wasn't
| "work" but a fun hobby
| alistairSH wrote:
| Sure, but that time was nearly 30 years ago. Linux has been
| "mainstream" since at least August 1999.
| ctde wrote:
| people like me contributed their freetime afterwards
| still
| BeetleB wrote:
| People still do. I think the point he's making is that
| the _bulk_ of the kernel 's source coming from people
| paid to do it has been a thing for probably over 20
| years.
| nomel wrote:
| Any data for this?
| betaby wrote:
| Yes, here for example https://lwn.net/Articles/915435/
| ano-ther wrote:
| > bland hellscape of conformity
|
| I see three reasons to use swearwords sparingly, even though
| they don't particularly offend me.
|
| 1 Managing my own emotions. Most swearing is negative and that
| drags you down which is not very productive or fun.
|
| 2 Managing others' emotions as they burst out, which stresses
| the people around the swearer.
|
| 3 Some people just can't say a fucking sentence without
| gratuitous swearing which makes them sound fucking stupid.
| westmeal wrote:
| Hey I use fucking in every fucking possible way but I'm only
| slightly fucking stupid ok? Fuck man.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _3 Some people just can't say a fucking sentence without
| gratuitous swearing which makes them sound fucking stupid._
|
| I think this is subjective.
| josephg wrote:
| It's also incredibly cultural.
|
| Swearing in the workplace is much more normal here in
| Australia. In my first job at an American company, I was
| shocked how prissy people were about swearing. In my head I
| thought "these are adults, right? Why is everyone acting
| like a blushing teenager?". I'm sure I sounded rough as
| guts to them. It took ages to learn to scale it back
| depending on who I was talking to.
|
| Swearing with someone about / at work is kinda an
| Australian way to say "I trust you and feel relaxed around
| you". Forcing myself to not swear felt at first like I was
| pretending I didn't like my coworkers. It was weird.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The constant use of the same two swear words shows a boring
| lack of imagination.
| keybored wrote:
| Or a proxy for how many Americans work on the code. Maybe
| search the mailing list for occurrences of "inappropriate".
|
| Not that this not-Yankee has much of a need to swear in public
| to feel Free.
|
| > , but I definitely don't drop swear words into documents that
| unknown people might see. That's just basic professionalism.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291560
| almosthere wrote:
| They just use fewer, but still write disparaging things about
| their peers if that's what you want.
| ImageXav wrote:
| I feel as though it also represents the fact that contributors
| are less invested in the project. There was a small study done
| a few years back hypothesizing that the number of swear words
| related somewhat to code quality [0] due to emotional
| involvement of the codebase authors. I can imagine this to be
| somewhat true. I would love to see this study redone now that
| LLMs are widespread on pre chatgpt repos (as I suspect that
| repos created using LLMs are going to be very sanitised).
|
| [0] https://cme.h-its.org/exelixis/pubs/JanThesis.pdf
| sunshowers wrote:
| I show my investment in projects through means other than
| swearing, for example through extensive testing.
| d3m0t3p wrote:
| You can check company names too ! It's interesting to see that by
| default, the graph shows google,apple. But adding meta, and IBM
| really changes the plot.
|
| Meta went from 2K to 10K+ from 2018 to 2025. While IBM seems to
| have stopped contributing in 2008. Since they the merging with
| RedHat, I would have expected to see them increase again but none
| of RedHat / IBM seems to have increase.
| https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#redhat,oracle...
| Not sure if their name appearing means that they are contributing
| tho.
|
| Really cool project,
| M95D wrote:
| Meta is not just a company name. Look at how it's used:
|
| https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atorvalds%2Flinux%20meta&t...
| Zobat wrote:
| I wonder if there's anything not referring to IBM that
| matches that search. Add them and you'll see that they soar
| over all others.
| necovek wrote:
| All the mentions of "IBM PC"? "HP" seems to follow closely
| behind too (Dell is nowhere close though but comparable to
| "redhat").
|
| Add "arm" in and it's a different ballgame: they are more
| than 2x anybody else, Meta and IBM included.
|
| Mostly goes to say that this doesn't really show much :)
| INTPenis wrote:
| But why have Apple contributions skyrocketed? I have never
| heard of Apple using Linux in anything.
| detaro wrote:
| This is mentions of Apple in the source code, not
| contributions, and non-Apple people have added lots of
| support for Apple hardware over the years.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| The recentness of this makes me wonder if this is Asahi
| contributions.
| Zobat wrote:
| Apple is Berkeley Unix-based, while not actually Linux it's
| possible their contributions to open source have made it's
| way into Linux (me guessing, no real experience of either
| Linux or Mac).
|
| Could also be that there's been work done to communicate with
| Apple specific products, again wild guesses but based on my
| perception of people working with Apple products is that
| there might be above average number of "edge cases" that
| needs addressing when communicating with those.
| roryirvine wrote:
| LWN publish better stats for every kernel release - the most
| recent (for 6.15) can be found at
| https://lwn.net/Articles/1022414/
|
| So RedHat were the third largest employer by number of
| changesets (after Intel and Google), IBM were 15th - but, by
| number of lines changed, they were 5th and 4th respectively.
| koala_man wrote:
| > Meta went from 2K to 10K+ from 2018 to 2025
|
| Facebook rebranded to Meta in October 2021
| sschueller wrote:
| Retard may not be in there as a swear word. It could be a comment
| regarding a "delay". [1]
|
| [1] :to delay or impede the development or progress of : to slow
| up especially by preventing or hindering advance or
| accomplishment
| GJim wrote:
| It's baffling anybody would think otherwise. Reddit auto-
| censorship (and such auto censorship elsewhere) has a lot to
| answer for.
| perching_aix wrote:
| See the other comment where the guy mentions it's
| overwhelmingly used in a non-cursing manner, then the first
| hit is it being used as cursing.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I don't think it's auto-censorship as much as language
| changing. For me, 'retard' is 99% associated with my friends
| dissing each other as kids, and 1% associated with 'delay'.
| squigz wrote:
| For me, it's mostly associated with being bullied as an
| autistic child, which might be the actual reason it's come
| to be seen as a "slur"
|
| Meh. Probably more likely is those damn automod settings on
| reddit (which aren't, you know, configured by moderators
| according to what their community wants or anything)
| jeremyjh wrote:
| Every "scientific" name for mental disability eventually
| becomes a slur or name. Idiot and moron were considered
| proper terms at one point in time. "Retard" was never
| proper but is easily derived from "mental retardation",
| which was. In the 80s/90s there was a push to use
| "special" as a euphemism and it was immediately picked up
| as a slur, I think both usages have been long-since
| abandoned as a result.
|
| Autistic is also being used this way but its long-term
| fate is not so clear to me.
|
| In general euphemisms cannot keep up with bigotry, I
| rather consider it a lost cause.
| squigz wrote:
| > In general euphemisms cannot keep up with bigotry, I
| rather consider it a lost cause.
|
| I don't. It doesn't seem to be that difficult to be aware
| of these things, and if I can save others from feeling
| the twinge of pain from being reminded of their
| childhood, or other abusive memories, simply by not using
| a few words... why wouldn't I?
| jansan wrote:
| In Germany we have "Retard-Tabletten" (Tabletten = pills),
| which are not intended to stop (or accelerate) cognitive
| decline, but release the active ingredients with a delay.
| perching_aix wrote:
| We have those too. I wonder how many people actually know
| that's what that means, cause it's not an everyday word by
| far here in this meaning.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| If you work with engines or planes you should be familiar
| with it's non-slur meaning. You retard ignition timing (you
| also "pull back" ignition timing) and you retard the
| throttles. Airbus planes tell you specifically to "retard".
| af78 wrote:
| Indeed. Most of the matches for "retard" have the meaning of
| "delay": $ git grep -i retard v6.15
| v6.15:drivers/net/dsa/sja1105/sja1105_dynamic_config.c:/* The
| switch is so retarded that it makes our command/entry
| abstraction
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/phy_a.h:#define
| B43_OFDMTAB_ADVRETARD B43_OFDMTAB(0x09, 0)
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/phy_lp.h:#define
| B43_LPPHY_ADVANCEDRETARDROTOR_ADDR B43_PHY_OFDM(0x8B) /*
| AdvancedRetardRotor Address */
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/phy_n.h:#define
| B43_NPHY_PHYSTAT_ADVRET B43_PHY_N(0x1F3) /* PHY stats ADV
| retard */
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/tables.c:const u32
| b43_tab_retard[] = {
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/tables.c:
| BUILD_BUG_ON(B43_TAB_RETARD_SIZE !=
| ARRAY_SIZE(b43_tab_retard));
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/tables.h:#define
| B43_TAB_RETARD_SIZE 53
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/tables.h:extern const
| u32 b43_tab_retard[];
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/wa.c:static void
| b43_wa_art(struct b43_wldev *dev) /* ADV retard table */
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/wa.c: for (i = 0; i <
| B43_TAB_RETARD_SIZE; i++)
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/wa.c:
| b43_ofdmtab_write32(dev, B43_OFDMTAB_ADVRETARD,
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/wa.c: i,
| b43_tab_retard[i]);
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/ilt.c:const u32
| b43legacy_ilt_retard[B43legacy_ILT_RETARD_SIZE] = {
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/ilt.h:#define
| B43legacy_ILT_RETARD_SIZE 53
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/ilt.h:extern
| const u32 b43legacy_ilt_retard[B43legacy_ILT_RETARD_SIZE];
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/phy.c: for (i =
| 0; i < B43legacy_ILT_RETARD_SIZE; i++)
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/phy.c:
| b43legacy_ilt_retard[i]);
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/phy.h:#define
| B43legacy_OFDMTAB_ADVRETARD B43legacy_OFDMTAB(0x09, 0)
| v6.15:drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmsmac/d11.h:/*
| Advance Retard */ v6.15:fs/bcachefs/bkey_cmp.h: /* we
| shouldn't need asm for this, but gcc is being retarded: */
| robinhouston wrote:
| What's the story behind the Great Unfuckening that took place
| between v4.18-rc8 and v5.6?
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| i like to think it's solely down to linus.
|
| 4.18 was the second half of 2018, around the time linus took
| some time away and went off doing therapy to work on his
| "communication issues".
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| It's not.
|
| I can't reproduce the exact datapoints from the site using
| `git grep`, but most of it seems to be down to a single
| commit that removed repeated usage of fuck from one file: htt
| ps://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/a44d924c81d43ddffc9...
| guax wrote:
| They stopped giving a F and started to give a S (lots of it)
| bojle wrote:
| I like the fact that some words are there from the very
| beginning.
| b0a04gl wrote:
| > most of the apple/meta mentions are likely hardware support
| strings or vendor-specific quirks, not actual dev contributions.
| it reflects who linux has to accommodate, not who's writing
| upstream patches
|
| > what abt the context density. how many files per vendor
| mention? how many touched subsystems? and are these strings from
| comments, error messages, or code logic? raw grep graphs don't
| show structural influence
| jart wrote:
| At least they left the one swear word that isn't a swear word for
| us.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Interesting but I worry documenting things like this will just
| cause further politicisation and vitrol. See also: renaming
| "master" branch to "main", etc.
| amelius wrote:
| Reminds me of:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/vbvxiv/10_years_ago_...
|
| (warning, contains footage of frustrated programmer making
| offensive gesture)
| tianqi wrote:
| I am particularly interested in the rapid and steady growth of
| "garbage", among rubbish, trash and junk. What does this
| indicate? An evolution of English?
| TheSilva wrote:
| Given that it started appearing in 1995, I will assume it is
| because of the influence of the movie Hackers in the developers
| of the kernel source.
| mlok wrote:
| The band Garbage became popular around 1995. Would be
| interesting to look for any correlation.
| mcosta wrote:
| Some kind Garbage Collection inside the kernel?
| plq wrote:
| AFAICT the consensus is to say that an uninitialized variable
| (eg. int i;) has "garbage value". I'd say it's rather a
| technical term than profanity.
| inopinatus wrote:
| The GPU access ring buffer aka GARB is expired after a set
| duration i.e. when garb_age exceeds the garb_age_dump value.
| shakna wrote:
| A mindless grep. It's probably picking up the massive amount of
| effort that has gone into link-time garbage collection, and
| socket inflight garbage, and so many, many others.
| peterlada wrote:
| The first derivative would have been a better plot. Perhaps
| overlaid with dates of cultural shifts.
| akie wrote:
| Missed the opportunity to include "garbage" in the list of
| default words for that graph... 5 times as frequent as the next
| runner up, "crap".
| VMG wrote:
| But what if somebody implemented garbage collection?
| neuroelectron wrote:
| What garbage?
| RedShift1 wrote:
| Pretty sure 99% of these are gonna be in the drivers and direct
| hardware interaction bits.
| inopinatus wrote:
| The decline in serious profanity is especially disappointing
| given that Linus is a Finn. I have Finnish friends and they have
| explained to me that at least half the core vocabulary is
| swearing.
| bArray wrote:
| Trying adding "ass", it explodes [1]. Not sure if that's because
| of keywords such as 'class' or something else? "dumb" is really
| on the uptake [2].
|
| [1]
| https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#fuck*,shit*,d...*
|
| [2]
| https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#fuck*,shit*,d...*
| qzw wrote:
| Report: Adding ass makes stuff explode. Dumb is on the uptake.
|
| Resolution: Behaving as expected. Won't fix.
| steamrolled wrote:
| Assembly, assign, assert, assume, associate... I think most of
| what you're picking up is not actually naughty.
| odo1242 wrote:
| Yea, if you remove the star at the end, it goes back to
| normal
| krunck wrote:
| Is this in contrast to "Jokes and Humour in the Public Android
| API" ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44285781 ) posted 6
| hours earlier?
| f4c39012 wrote:
| of these i'd take "idiot" as the most harmful, working against
| positive collaboration
| dhsysusbsjsi wrote:
| As an Australian I'm disappointed in the lack of the key word
| 'cunt' in the graph. Unless perhaps it's zero.
| jenny91 wrote:
| In the US, that is an unthinkably bad swearword for some
| reason.
| gsk22 wrote:
| That's heavily dependent on regional/cultural factors. Among
| a younger and (mostly) gayer demographic, the once-feared
| "C-word" is very commonly used, especially in its adjective
| form.
| Green-Man wrote:
| I miss year numbers on the axis, so very roughly:
|
| 1992 0.x
|
| 1994 1.x
|
| 1996 2.x
|
| 2004 2.6.x
|
| 2011 3.x
|
| 2015 4.x
|
| 2019 5.x
|
| 2023 6.x
| Centigonal wrote:
| Interesting jump in "crap" right after the start of the global
| COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps being cooped up inside the house
| hacking on the kernel is less fun when that's your only choice.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| It's actually because someone with "crap" as a substring of
| their e-mail address made a bunch of contributions with their
| e-mail address in it (e.g. in maintainer records and copyright
| notices) around that time. Nothing to do with COVID-19.
|
| See the graph with the entire domain for comparison:
| https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#crapouillou
| Centigonal wrote:
| incredible!
|
| I guess the lesson here is to never take a chart at face
| value. :)
| gwbas1c wrote:
| In one of my internships we once started searching the source
| code tree for swear words. It ultimately demonstrated who was
| professional, and who wasn't.
|
| One thing that was funny was when we searched for moron. There
| was a file that basically said "[this workaround exists] because
| [name of someone] is a make-moron."
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| Now can we correlate the same timeline the number LOCs Linus
| contributed personally?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I'd note that "retarded" can be a technical term which is not an
| insult or swear word which means "delayed" (e.g. "tardy") In an
| internal combustion engine you could have "advanced" or
| "retarded" spark timing for instance.
|
| It's an amusing area where denotations are the same in French and
| English but the denotations are different. [1] All over Quebec
| you see convenience stores called "Couche-Tard" (Sleep Late)
| which can provoke a double-take like seeing a sign for a
| restaurant called PFK with a picture of Colonel Sanders.
|
| [1] An ad for a breakfast sandwich, coffee and hash browns can be
| advertised as "L'Ensemble Quotodienne" a phrase made of everyday
| words in French which are $20 words in English.
| fracus wrote:
| Not in source code, but the word is also officially used in
| aviation as an automated audio warning to the pilots to, IIRC,
| slow down or pull back. The system screams "Retard! Retard!
| Retard!". I think they often hear it during normal landing
| procedures.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbLHah4XUwk&t=815s
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Notably French and English are the two languages of
| international aviation
| rzzzt wrote:
| IIRC Family Guy has a scene where Peter responds to the
| announcement in kind.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Once upon a time planes dropped only gravity bombs that just
| fell with the forward speed of the launching aircraft. These
| exploded directly under the aircraft (see all ww2 footage).
| Then were developed "retarded-fall" or delayed bombs with fins
| or parachutes so that the bomb's forward movment slowed and it
| exploded behind the aircraft (see vietnam footage of bombs with
| pop-out fins). Then came laser-guided "smart" bombs. So we now
| have "smart" bombs which are guided, "dumb" bombs which arent,
| and "retarded" bombs which are dumb bombs that slow down. We
| have accidentally fallen into pc trap where it can be difficult
| to use these terms.
|
| Retarded fall "snakeye" bombs: https://youtu.be/3_RM19hOMo4
| em3rgent0rdr wrote:
| In music, a gradual slowing uses the internationally-understood
| Italian term "ritardando", which is abbreviated as "rit." or
| "ritard.", which often leads to chuckles by less-mature
| musicians and diverts precious rehearsal or recording studio
| time. I've learned to always say the full word "ritardando".
| ephou7 wrote:
| 6.15.2 has 20 occurrences, of which only 2 are actual
| swearwords ./fs/bcachefs/bkey_cmp.h: /* we
| shouldn't need asm for this, but gcc is being retarded: */
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmsmac/d11.h:/*
| Advance Retard */
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/phy.h:#define
| B43legacy_OFDMTAB_ADVRETARD B43legacy_OFDMTAB(0x09, 0)
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/phy.c: for (i = 0; i
| < B43legacy_ILT_RETARD_SIZE; i++)
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/phy.c:
| b43legacy_ilt_retard[i]);
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/ilt.h:#define
| B43legacy_ILT_RETARD_SIZE 53
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/ilt.h:extern const
| u32 b43legacy_ilt_retard[B43legacy_ILT_RETARD_SIZE];
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43legacy/ilt.c:const u32
| b43legacy_ilt_retard[B43legacy_ILT_RETARD_SIZE] = {
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/wa.c:static void
| b43_wa_art(struct b43_wldev *dev) /* ADV retard table */
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/wa.c: for (i = 0; i <
| B43_TAB_RETARD_SIZE; i++)
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/wa.c:
| b43_ofdmtab_write32(dev, B43_OFDMTAB_ADVRETARD,
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/wa.c: i,
| b43_tab_retard[i]);
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/tables.h:#define
| B43_TAB_RETARD_SIZE 53
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/tables.h:extern const u32
| b43_tab_retard[];
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/tables.c:const u32
| b43_tab_retard[] = {
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/tables.c:
| BUILD_BUG_ON(B43_TAB_RETARD_SIZE !=
| ARRAY_SIZE(b43_tab_retard));
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/phy_n.h:#define
| B43_NPHY_PHYSTAT_ADVRET B43_PHY_N(0x1F3) /* PHY stats ADV
| retard */
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/phy_lp.h:#define
| B43_LPPHY_ADVANCEDRETARDROTOR_ADDR B43_PHY_OFDM(0x8B) /*
| AdvancedRetardRotor Address */
| ./drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/b43/phy_a.h:#define
| B43_OFDMTAB_ADVRETARD B43_OFDMTAB(0x09, 0)
| ./drivers/net/dsa/sja1105/sja1105_dynamic_config.c:/* The
| switch is so retarded that it makes our command/entry
| abstraction
| Bengalilol wrote:
| Microsoft is catching up with Linus.
| excalibur wrote:
| Idk who decided what words to include by default. The graphs for
| "bitch" and "gay" are interesting.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Peak kludge was first reached at 2002-05-18 with a total number
| of 118 kludges.
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