4 ms·
Rename GTFO to GOAWAY
- sdegutis 13y ago> GTFO is crass and doesn't belong in internet standards. Agreed, although I got the impression the internet just stopped caring?
- polskibus 13y agoI'm surprised it took so long.
- mason240 13y agoPeople are staring to really scrape the bottom of barrel of things to be upset about.
- yid 13y agoNobody seems upset. This is about professionalism.
- pohl 13y agoI wouldn't say that it has anything to do with the competence or skill expected of a professional. It's more a matter of decorum. Edit: I recognize that there are those who would like to load more connotations onto the term, but I think that even the above definition is just a bunch of marketing fluff promulgated by those who stand to benefit from people believing that they'll get a better result from paying someone to do something rather than doing it themselves.
- zxcdw 13y agoProfessionalism is much more than competence and/or skill, just like good sports is about good sportsmanship too.
- BlackDeath3 13y agoPerhaps it would be better for everybody if "professionalism" focused more on competence and skill, and less on politically-correct bullshit.
- to3m 13y agoProfessionalism encompasses the whole lot. And I believe the presence of GTFO is not especially professional. It's spoiling for a fight, basically. And it got one, and it will lose. Pathetic, really. (I really wanted to close with a saying along the lines of "one man's politically-correct bullshit is another person's basic standard of human decency", but I saw somebody say this - or something very much like it - once on HN, and it was followed up by a comment from somebody complaining that this level of politically-correct nonsense was infringing on his fundamental immutable human right not to be implicitly compared to something inhuman. Which I suppose is fair enough. And I certainly wouldn't want anybody to feel oppressed.)
- batbomb 13y agoDennis Ritchie: “So fsck was originally called something else” Question: “What was it called?” Dennis Ritchie: "Well, the second letter was different"
- Crito 13y agoGiven the standard scenario in which fsck is used, the alternative name seems pretty appropriate.
- alexchamberlain 13y agoBooting up?
- rodgerd 13y agoAnd yet I've always pronounced it "fossick". Which seems appropriate for what it does (fossicking around the disk, looking for all the lost bits).
- SDGT 13y agoI've always said "F-Sock" No reason, just looked right. Plus my manager probably wouldn't like me saying things like "I just need to fuck this disk really quick."
- fsiefken 13y agoMuch better, it's also in line with the age old SSH error message: 'you don't exist. go away'
- vonmoltke 13y ago> GTFO is crass and doesn't belong in internet standards. Oh, STFU. Seriously, though, I see the point. I'm kinda torn on issues likes this. On one hand, language in a standard, particularly as it relates to implemented messages, should meet some minimum level of decorum and avoid colloquialisms. On the other hand, stuffy language battles are pointless and distract from the primary goal of releasing a usable standard with usable error messages. On this particular issue I lean towards the former winning out. Edit: someone else mentioned the word I was trying to think of.
- phoen 13y agoUnderstanding by the greatest possible number of people should be the goal here, in my opinion. GOAWAY makes plenty sense when compared to GTFO, assuming that not everyone who learns of it intentionally is well-versed in that of which GTFO is a relatively smaller part. Grandma wouldn't necessarily get GTFO (right away, anyway) but she would likely pick up GOAWAY in a snap. Of course, the above assumes a section of people who are fluent (enough?) in English to grok the spec. EDIT: Grammerr. EDIT: Clarification in response to Vonmoltke.
- vonmoltke 13y agoAnd GOAWAY is not clear and understandable from its name?
- SDGT 13y agoIf we're really talking clear and understandable, id wager more of the world would understand FUCKOFF than it would GOAWAY, for example. English profanity has a tendency to be better understood by other languages and countries than the appropriate western vernacular.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- SDGT 13y agoThe type of people that actually get offended by this stuff are rarely those involved with actually working with the protocol. I like this stuff. It reminds me that humans with a sense of humor build the things we use everyday, and not some emotionless robot.
- genericuser 13y agoI personally am a fan of professional tools breaking away from the need to be serious all the time. It is just that I experience joy when I find little things like GTFO in the world which not only make sense in their context but have a bit of humor. So I guess I just disagree with the idea that standards should not contain anything crass. Also I have a question concerning the 4th point as I am admittedly unfamiliar with the HTTP 2.0 spec. "GTFO, if it really stands for "General Termination of Future Operations," has a surprising definition and may produce confusion. We should strive for absolute clarity above all else in editorial changes." Can someone elaborate on what the confusion it would produce would be?
- stevejohnson 13y agoI believe that the surprise would come from it not meaning "get the f* out." Which makes perfect sense to me - GTFO has a meaning, and re-backronyming it can only harm understanding of the standard. Also consider non-native English speakers, which is really important when developing international standards. The fact that someone suggested a corresponding "HTTP TITS" should set off at least minor warning bells that "HTTP GTFO" is not a good thing to put in the standard. I certainly don't want to see HTTP LOL (Long Overdue Listen), HTTP WAT (Wireless Ask Transmit), etc. Humor is great, but good standards are better.
- genericuser 13y agoHow does surprise about what the acronym stands for lead to confusion about what it does? This question is hopefully more along the lines of what I wanted to ask and clearly didn't. Edit: To further clarify I mean surprise about what it stands for when both interpretations convey a similar idea.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoWAT is a perfectly valid acronym, actually.
- Crito 13y agoCertainly no more problematic than SMTP's HELO...
- taybin 13y agoGood. Glad to see this change.
- taybin 13y agoThanks for the downvotes! You guys make HN the shining city on the hill of the internet!
- lowboy 13y agoGood move. GTFO is less than ideal not because of the F, but because of the association with the "Tits or GTFO" meme. https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tits+or+GTFO https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tits+or+GTFO http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tits-or-gtfo http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tits-or-gtfo
- pc86 13y agoIf there was ever an example of frantically searching for a reason to take offense to something, this would be it. There are probably half a dozen legitimate reasons not to use GTFO in a spec, and this is almost certainly not one of them.
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoGOAWAY is less than ideal not because of the "GOAWAY", but because of the association with the expression "Go away, ${RANDOM_INSULT}." Seriously, you're no better than the person who sees "brogrammer" when the word "bro" is mentioned. This is such a narrow and ridiculously flawed way of thinking.
- icambron 13y agoI think this is a good change because GOAWAY is simpler, more obvious, and has a tone matching the actual operation. Plus, the har-har pretense that GTFO means "General termination of future operations" is childish. With that out of the way, the pearl-clutching about the word "fuck" and how unprofessional it is irritates me. We have this weird notion that it's OK for us to curse individually but that there's this wider world out there that hates cursing. I don't think that's true and we should stop acting like it is. More generally, I think this almost arbitrary division of professional vs unprofessional things [1] does a big disservice to actual differences in professionalism like courtesy, personal responsibility, and reliability. "If you follow these silly rules, you can pretend to be an adult!" [1] Joel Spolsky has a great essay about this that I wasn't immediately able to find. It mentioned, among other things, how silly it is that the smell of popcorn is said to be "unprofessional".
- untog 13y agoI'm less concerned about the professionalism side of it than I am the confusion one. Do non-English speakers use GTFO? If not we've just given them a hard to remember acronym for no good reason.
- rtpg 13y agoI think people know what it means, but the bigger issue is that a lot of non-native English speakers do not parse nuance very well, and might not understand that the term in itself is somewhat strong. I've heard a lot of foreigners (especially people from nordic countries or germany) speaking English in a way that is a lot ruder than they might realize. One thing is the personality (they seem to be more direct), but there have been many instances where it's obvious they aren't aware that the language they're using is way too strong for their situation. This goes doubly so if your main English education is internet forums. Not saying that it's a reason to remove GTFO, but the humor (which is slightly in the very exaggerated vocabulary, which seems to be misinterpreted as a strong intent) is probably lost in translation.
- mmatants 13y agoFuck and other profanities are signal words for extreme emotional state. Professionalism includes remaining fair and emotionally unaffected under most reasonable conditions. Hence the dissonance of using "fuck" and other charged (culture-dependent of course) words and sentiments in work life.
- fleitz 13y agoYes, it's far more professional to paint the bike shed blue, chartreuse is difficult to understand and conveys the message that those who bike to work are drunks which is certainly not what we should be trying to convey.
- rtpg 13y agoI know how a lot of us like to condemn "political correctness" or whatnot, but saying something crass (and , honestly, I've never seen someone use GTFO in a non-crass situation), where half of the shock value is just the language, is pretty pointless. There's a lot of stuff out there by comedians about how saying "fuck" is probably the cheapest way to get laughs. It's pretty much cheating. At least saying your server is a teapot is slightly unexpected. considering what the output is supposed to be, I would think something like PLZSTOP would be slightly better than GOAWAY, but in any case GTFO is not even really funny, kinda wears away at our already limited supply of swear words, and isn't worthy of the high-grade humor that is internet specification humor.
- humanrebar 13y agoI don't think GTFO is as crass as the actual word 'fuck'. FUBAR, WTF, PITA, and SOL are certainly colloquial and arcane, but I don't believe they're considered swear words per se (maybe WTF).
- ville 13y agoI think this episode and the recent brouhaha from someone naming a CLI "bro" have shown that an attempt at humor in naming things generally just diverts the attention from the technology to other things.
- Symmetry 13y agoIt's more that naming things is one of the two hardest things in CS, along with concurrency and off by one errors. But seriously, there are lots of clever names that everybody loves, it's just that it's easy to get clever wrong and you should think about how your name could be misinterpreted. And you should avoid swearing, sexuality, and violence like the plague.
- Crito 13y agoMaybe I should submitting a pull request to change "kill" to "signal".
- BSeward 13y agoAndroid has android.util.Log.wtf[1], "What a Terrible Failure". That makes me laugh and this makes me laugh and I'm all for a little humor in specifications [1] http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/Log.html#wtf(java.lang.String,%20java.lang.Throwable) http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/Log.html...
- nbm 13y agoI'm surprised nobody has brought up that this was originally called GOAWAY in the spec, and that it was only renamed from GOAWAY to GTFO five days ago. It's not like it was always named GTFO or that people are remotely attached to it. In fact, people involved in the process (ie, the working group mailing list) only heard about it after it was renamed. (I realise that's because this isn't a protocol-related issue, only a documentation one, but my argument is that there's no real impact in the change back.)
- JackpotDen 13y agoWhy don't you go away to a more conservative field?
- DanBC 13y agoThis thread is fascinating. For an industry obsessed with A / B testing the colour of a button or the placement of a link there are plenty of people who don't seem to realise that details matter. Sure, they shouldn't matter, and it'd be great if we could get past them to actual competence, but not swearing in front of customers or wearing smarter clothing are the kinds of things that make a difference.