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Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

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Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

#31
post #29

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?

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.

Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

#32
post #29

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?

The band Garbage became popular around 1995. Would be interesting to look for any correlation.

Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

#34
post #5

Theory: the shift towards lesser swearwords is a sign of corporatization, making the linux source a soulless bland hellscape of confirmity.

[flagged]

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...

Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

#35

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

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 

Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

#36
post #29

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?

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.

Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

#37

Theory: the shift towards lesser swearwords is a sign of corporatization, making the linux source a soulless bland hellscape of confirmity.

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?

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.

Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

#39

Theory: the shift towards lesser swearwords is a sign of corporatization, making the linux source a soulless bland hellscape of confirmity.

They went up, actually. "crap" skyrocketed in the last years, and the rest were more or less stable.

> 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]

Re: Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time

#40

Theory: 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.

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