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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
by alistairSH 1y ago
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 1y agothe 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 1y agoSure, but that time was nearly 30 years ago. Linux has been "mainstream" since at least August 1999.
- ctde 1y agopeople like me contributed their freetime afterwards still
- BeetleB 1y agoPeople 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.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- arp242 1y agoWhy August 1999? Seems quite specific?
- alistairSH 1y agoRedHat's IPO. Seemed like as good a date as any to anchor "when Linux went mainstream". I'm sure there are other dates that are arguably at least as good here.
- arp242 1y agoAh right, that roughly tracks. Just wasn't obvious where "August 1999" came from. Kind of amazing timeline in hindsight by the way; Linux was "only" 8 years old at that point.