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'I'm a Teapot' Error Code Saved From Extinction By Public Outcry (gizmodo.com.au)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the when-I-get-all-steamed-up dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Gizmodo: It started back in 1998 as an April Fool's Day gag. Written up by Larry Masinter of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), error code 418 -- "I'm a teapot" -- was nothing more than a poke at the "many bad HTTP extensions that had been proposed". Despite its existence as a joke, a number of major software projects, including Node.js, ASP.NET and Google's Go language, implemented it as an Easter egg. A recent attempt to excise the fictitious code from these projects ended up doing the opposite, cementing it as a "reserved" error by the IETF...

Mark Nottingham, IETF chair for the HTTP and QUIC working groups, flagged the code's removal as an "issue" for Google's Go language, the Node.js Javascript runtime and Microsoft's ASP.NET... Nottingham's argument was that 418 was "polluting [the] core protocol" of these projects... It didn't take long for a "Save 418" website to go live and through the efforts of interested internet historians (and jokers), all three of the aforementioned projects have decided to keep the code as it is, though Google will "revisit" the situation with the next major version of Go.
The Save 418 site argued that "the application of such an status code is boundless. Its utility, quite simply, is astonishingly unparalleled. It's a reminder that the underlying processes of computers are still made by humans. It'd be a real shame to see 418 go."

3 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Let us have our fun. by Daltorak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The work that software developers do is extremely mentally challenging. We're often under pressure to not only create a product that is good enough to be profitable (or at least helpful), but also to not make extremely subtle mistakes that results in security vulnerabilities, information exposure, or denial of service.

    That's why we like putting little jokes in our software. It helps us cope with the pressure. It's why song lyrics, movie quotes and ASCII art find their way into code comments. It's why JIRA's about page is presented as an 8-bit video game. It's why we have an RFC describing an "evil bit". It's why error pages for popular source code repository have anthropomorphic robots. Hell, even MS Excel had a freakin' flight simulator built into it at one point!

    The world is bad enough as it is without the misery-mongers demanding we excise all forms of fun from our line of work. Leave us alone. Let us have our fun. We know what we're doing.

    1. Re:Let us have our fun. by The+Evil+Atheist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Given that 418's purpose was to make fun of the sheer amount of bad proposals, it's actually a good idea for it to remain to remind people to actually think more about their crappy proposals. Those crappy proposals, because they weren't jokes, would have actually needed to be supported with development effort. Sometimes shame and ridicule goes a long way than some rule book no one reads.

      --
      Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
    2. Re:Let us have our fun. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Are you a psychopath with delusions of grandeur who owns a company, or are you the line worker with no self esteem who believes themselves powerless and fungible?

      Protip: If an owner is hiring people for his company, there are things that he or she can't do, either due to lack of training, lack of interest or (most likely) lack of time. Smart owners appreciate that fact.