Satan, Britney Spears Top Paris Hilton In OSS References 182
An anonymous reader writes "Krugle, a software search company, had some time on its hands — it compared frequency of mentions in open source code of presidential candidates, Beelzebub and yes, Britney Spears." I wish they'd link to a nice long list of the other terms this revealed — there are probably a lot of subtler funny references and asides.
Am I missing something here? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Am I missing something here? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was thinking the same thing.
But, I guess when some people are coding they like to inject a little bit of silliness or vent their anger.
I once worked on a project where we were explicitly told our comments couldn't have profanity or other non-PC things in them. Apparently, one time during a customer-required code walkthrough, the developer had littered their code with all sorts of insulting things about the customers and their requirements out of frustration with tight timelines and bad specs. It caused quite a stir. Thereafter, they made sure all developers understood that such things would not be tolerated.
Me, I just couldn't fathom why I'd want to waste time putting vitriol into my code and comments. I need the comments to explain to me what I'm doing and why so that 2 months from now I know what I'd been trying to do.
However, having maintained a few legacy code-bases in my day, you'd be astonished what people actually do put into comments. I've seen some downright bizarre things, ranging from slagging the product to slagging people. Heck, I saw a haiku once, and it actually explained the function quite well.
I suspect a lot of OSS coders have a different view about what to put into their code and have lots of time on their hands to do it in.
Cheers
in code, or in comments? (Score:2, Interesting)
i've used some amusing code like:
itBroke = true;
but that still communicates something useful to me, (it indicates an unrecoverable error condition)
plus then i could write:
(itBroke) ? fixIt() : dontFixIt();
naming a class HillaryClinton is just ridiculous. I wonder if there are variables named intCheatCount in the diebold software?
currently i am working on a section of code littered with ninja references in the comments though, that is fine, and lightens up my day a little.
sheesh.
Re:Am I missing something here? (Score:5, Interesting)
The code got an A with the added comment from the Prof that the minimum hard copy length requirement for first years would be going away after this.
Well, good! (Score:5, Interesting)
More developers is a good thing.