Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Tue, 23 Jul 1996 19:30:29 +0000 | From | "Hubert A. Bahr" <> | Subject | Re: Nasty comments |
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I gave up using curse words to impress somebody 30 years ago. Okay I'm old. As a Vietnam Vet I certainly had the opurtunity to invent and use my share.
My problem with curse words in published code, which is what putting your code on an ftp site essentially does, publish it. Is that it reflects a lack of pride in the product. I didn't know that code for linux was being put out against a deadline and against the authors wishes. It should be a freely given product that reflects pride in its development.
I've certainly known the frustration of long debugging sessions and been warned by my wife more than once about the salt air around my computer, but I find time to tidy up before I publish.
As the Linux product becomes more professional it becomes more and more tempting to use sections of it as examples for class discussion and I would rather have the discussion on what the code does than what the comments contain. All in all, if I see code with profanity in it, it colors my view of its value and certainly makes me question its use, especially for discussion.
My view on comments is if the author doesn't have pride in his code and leaves explatives in it so be it. I won't have pride in it either. For runtime messages, I concur, there is no proper place for them in published code.
Hubert Bahr
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