4 ms·

> While surprisingly informal, there are limits to how far the programmers go. There are no derogatory references to Microsoft or Windows themselves. Bill Gates

> While surprisingly informal, there are limits to how far the programmers go. There are no derogatory references to Microsoft or Windows themselves. Bill Gates is never mentioned. There are no racist or homophobic slurs. You know, just because someone uses swear words doesn't mean they're racist or homophobic... Also, I don't find those comments terrible. If anything, maybe a bit childish.

psyc 9y ago
I’m an ex-MS dev and they brought a wave of nostalgia. The hypothesis they were injected by maligners isn’t needed. We wrote comments like that all the time, although after this leak they were somewhat discouraged.
- kabdib 9y ago
  There was a simple scanning system called "Policheck" that was introduced in most source trees; it checked against a list of keywords. It didn't prevent checkins IIRC, but it flagged files for attention (it's been a while, and I never personally ran into a policheck hit). The list included the obvious "dirty" words, and milder words like "idiot" and "moron". Surprising inclusions were references to the DOJ, the Microsoft consent decree with the DOJ, and Janet Reno.
  - AndrewGaspar 9y ago
    Reading that policheck file was also incredibly educational. I learned all sorts of exotic curse words I didn't know before. :)
    - chocolatebunny 9y ago
      What exotic curse words apply to Janet Reno?
      - kabdib 9y ago
        The mere mention of her name was sufficient :-)
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - sigil 9y ago
    I once failed a Policheck for using the word “womb” in a comment.
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  I learned a long, long time ago to keep code clean. Only take being burned once for you to realise it can come back and bite you years later. Oh, and be careful of your messages in debug/trace statements, should your client decide to have a look at those ever-growing files.
  - blauditore 9y ago
    What happened?
    - kabdib 9y ago
      In the Apple Newton source code, a cow-orker of mine wrote a comment about Sharp Electronics, our manufacturing partner. The comment was a snarky inclusion of their corporate motto, "From Sharp minds come sharp products" in a place where Sharp engineers had done something unusually boneheaded that my friend had had to work around with an ugly hack. Then someone shared the source code in question with Sharp (as sample code or something), and they found the comment. Many, many apologies later, $mike was able to laugh about it, though I don't believe he ever felt unjustified. This may have been the time that he decided that his unofficial job title in Newton was Official Scapegoat. "Feel free to blame me for anything that goes wrong. I won't do anything about it, but at least you can blame someone." Teams cranking 80+ hours a week on a project for a year or two are just gonna vent. It's perfectly healthy.
    - alex_hitchins 9y ago
      Copious embarrassment was the main thing. I believe the client was using it as much as possible to leverage some free consultancy, saying some of the comments obviously written by staff were unprofessional and violated good faith agreements and so on. Today I proceed with the thinking that anything I write could be read by my mother.
    - bonesss 9y ago
      My co-worker was dealing with some credit card operations on a kiosk solution. During a key demo a quick test of the system triggered some fraud detection and the system threw up a huge "Got you, sucka!!" message. The new owners shared a look between themselves...
- 1001101 9y ago
  They have a certain aesthetic. In addition to form, they're hard to miss and ignore (articles written about them...), which, in this case, is functional.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
>Also, I don't find those comments terrible. If anything, maybe a bit childish. I think it indicates that the people writing them felt comfortable enough with their environment team that they could talk freely. Stuff like: "if this alert fires you should start an incident and page teams X Y and Z before you page $alert_author." "if this alert fires and we're not switching between active and standby data-centers then you should update your resume and begin the process of failing over to the standby datacenter" "this is a terrible hack because this is a terrible legacy system and the worse it is the more incentive the remaining (internal) customers have to move to the new system and the author's time is better spend building good code for the current system" "this process is specifically designed to be a massive pain in the ass in order to encourage you to do $stuff ahead of time and not rush it through in the last minute"
- dkersten 9y ago
  > people writing them felt comfortable enough with their environment team that they could talk freely. There's talking freely and there's writing childish or unprofessional comments in the source code. It doesn't take much to keep code comments clean and you can still vent to your coworkers in other ways. The example comments you wrote all seem ok to me though, except the second one, which just comes across childish or dickish. You can say the same thing and be blunt about it without suggesting someone should be fired for doing what you don't want them to do. But hey, that's just my opinion on the matter.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gilrain 9y ago
"just because someone uses swear words doesn't mean they're racist or homophobic" Where does it ever imply that? It says racist and homophobic slurs, not just swears like "fuck" or whatever. And yes, if one uses bigoted slurs, then one is a bigot.
- viraptor 9y ago
  Maybe it wasn't meant that way, but it does sound like it: > there are limits to how far the programmers go I read it as - "I suspect they think of what I'm mentioning next, but limit themselves in what they'll actually type."

psyc 9y ago

I’m an ex-MS dev and they brought a wave of nostalgia. The hypothesis they were injected by maligners isn’t needed. We wrote comments like that all the time, although after this leak they were somewhat discouraged.

kabdib 9y ago
There was a simple scanning system called "Policheck" that was introduced in most source trees; it checked against a list of keywords. It didn't prevent checkins IIRC, but it flagged files for attention (it's been a while, and I never personally ran into a policheck hit). The list included the obvious "dirty" words, and milder words like "idiot" and "moron". Surprising inclusions were references to the DOJ, the Microsoft consent decree with the DOJ, and Janet Reno.
- AndrewGaspar 9y ago
  Reading that policheck file was also incredibly educational. I learned all sorts of exotic curse words I didn't know before. :)
  - chocolatebunny 9y ago
    What exotic curse words apply to Janet Reno?
    - kabdib 9y ago
      The mere mention of her name was sufficient :-)
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
- sigil 9y ago
  I once failed a Policheck for using the word “womb” in a comment.
alex_hitchins 9y ago
I learned a long, long time ago to keep code clean. Only take being burned once for you to realise it can come back and bite you years later. Oh, and be careful of your messages in debug/trace statements, should your client decide to have a look at those ever-growing files.
- blauditore 9y ago
  What happened?
  - kabdib 9y ago
    In the Apple Newton source code, a cow-orker of mine wrote a comment about Sharp Electronics, our manufacturing partner. The comment was a snarky inclusion of their corporate motto, "From Sharp minds come sharp products" in a place where Sharp engineers had done something unusually boneheaded that my friend had had to work around with an ugly hack. Then someone shared the source code in question with Sharp (as sample code or something), and they found the comment. Many, many apologies later, $mike was able to laugh about it, though I don't believe he ever felt unjustified. This may have been the time that he decided that his unofficial job title in Newton was Official Scapegoat. "Feel free to blame me for anything that goes wrong. I won't do anything about it, but at least you can blame someone." Teams cranking 80+ hours a week on a project for a year or two are just gonna vent. It's perfectly healthy.
  - alex_hitchins 9y ago
    Copious embarrassment was the main thing. I believe the client was using it as much as possible to leverage some free consultancy, saying some of the comments obviously written by staff were unprofessional and violated good faith agreements and so on. Today I proceed with the thinking that anything I write could be read by my mother.
  - bonesss 9y ago
    My co-worker was dealing with some credit card operations on a kiosk solution. During a key demo a quick test of the system triggered some fraud detection and the system threw up a huge "Got you, sucka!!" message. The new owners shared a look between themselves...
1001101 9y ago
They have a certain aesthetic. In addition to form, they're hard to miss and ignore (articles written about them...), which, in this case, is functional.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

>Also, I don't find those comments terrible. If anything, maybe a bit childish. I think it indicates that the people writing them felt comfortable enough with their environment team that they could talk freely. Stuff like: "if this alert fires you should start an incident and page teams X Y and Z before you page $alert_author." "if this alert fires and we're not switching between active and standby data-centers then you should update your resume and begin the process of failing over to the standby datacenter" "this is a terrible hack because this is a terrible legacy system and the worse it is the more incentive the remaining (internal) customers have to move to the new system and the author's time is better spend building good code for the current system" "this process is specifically designed to be a massive pain in the ass in order to encourage you to do $stuff ahead of time and not rush it through in the last minute"

dkersten 9y ago
> people writing them felt comfortable enough with their environment team that they could talk freely. There's talking freely and there's writing childish or unprofessional comments in the source code. It doesn't take much to keep code comments clean and you can still vent to your coworkers in other ways. The example comments you wrote all seem ok to me though, except the second one, which just comes across childish or dickish. You can say the same thing and be blunt about it without suggesting someone should be fired for doing what you don't want them to do. But hey, that's just my opinion on the matter.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gilrain 9y ago

"just because someone uses swear words doesn't mean they're racist or homophobic" Where does it ever imply that? It says racist and homophobic slurs, not just swears like "fuck" or whatever. And yes, if one uses bigoted slurs, then one is a bigot.

viraptor 9y ago
Maybe it wasn't meant that way, but it does sound like it: > there are limits to how far the programmers go I read it as - "I suspect they think of what I'm mentioning next, but limit themselves in what they'll actually type."