Linux Kernel Code Humor

An anonymous reader writes "This article points to some pretty funny comments and code in the Linux kernel. From colorful metaphors, to burning printers, to happy meals... A recursive search through the entire code base reveals some interesting language. Is all code like this?"

Comments

Re:Sometimes, and it can cause problems too.

[coyote-san]

The saddest thing is that the managers will never understand that they're responsible for their own problems. There are a lot of valid reasons for easing somebody out of the door, but the style of comments acceptable at the company before the merger is not one of them.

N.B., I am not defending comments that are abusive to coworkers, slanderous, etc. That type of language has no place in an office.

But the tone of a comment is a valuable indication of how much effort was put into fixing it. If I see a comment like // workaround, some_library_call() isn't working like advertised

it tells me that they RTFM but found a workaround. Maybe a future version of the library (or the FM) will get it right. I probably don't need to talk to the author before touching the code myself. In contrast, a comment like // fucking windows refuses to allow us to keep both widgets visible at the same time, so we'll do this instead...

tells me that they put a lot of effort into finding a solution to the problem, but every attempt failed. If I have an idea, I should talk to the author to see if he's already tried it. (Better yet would be a pointer to some internal document detailing everything they tried.)

This isn't absolute - many people will never let their comments contain any emotional tone, and others will swear at the slightest problem. But it's a valuable tool when it's used properly.

(Speaking of bugs, why does slashcode insist on merging paragraphs?)