Idk who decided what words to include by default. The graphs for "bitch" and "gay" are interesting.
Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
201–210 of 278 posts
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> 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…
> 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.)
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#203Theory: the shift towards lesser swearwords is a sign of corporatization, making the linux source a soulless bland hellscape of confirmity.
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.
> 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.
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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.
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#205Theory: the shift towards lesser swearwords is a sign of corporatization, making the linux source a soulless bland hellscape of confirmity.
> 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 ma…
> 3 Some people just can’t say a fucking sentence without gratuitous swearing which makes them sound fucking stupid.
I think this is subjective.
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#206Theory: the shift towards lesser swearwords is a sign of corporatization, making the linux source a soulless bland hellscape of confirmity.
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).
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#207Peak kludge was first reached at 2002-05-18 with a total number of 118 kludges.
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#208I'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 c…
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
IIRC Family Guy has a scene where Peter responds to the announcement in kind.
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#209Theory: the shift towards lesser swearwords is a sign of corporatization, making the linux source a soulless bland hellscape of confirmity.
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…
I show my investment in projects through means other than swearing, for example through extensive testing.
Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time
#210I'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 c…
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".