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OpenJDK Bug Report Complains Source Code 'Has Too Many Swear Words' (java.net)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the professionalism dept.

Thursday a bug report complained that the source code for OpenJDK, the free and open-source implementation of Java, "has too many swear words." An anonymous reader writes: "There are many instances of swear words inside OpenJDK jdk/jdk source, scattered all over the place," reads the bug report. "As OpenJDK is used in a professional context, it seems inappropriate to leave these 12 instances in there, so here's a changeset to remove them."
IBM software developer (and OpenJDK team member and contributor) Adam Farley responded that "after discussion with the community, three determinations were reached":
  • "Damn" and "Crap" are not swear words.
  • Three of the four f-bombs are located in jszip.js, which should be corrected upstream (will follow up).
  • The f-bomb in BitArray.java, as well as the rude typo in SoftChannel.java, *are* swear words and should be removed to resolve this work item.

He promised a new webrev would be uploaded to reflect these determinations, and the bug has been marked as "resolved."


14 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Well, for an expansive definition of "bug" by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's a pretty wide definition of "bug".
    I'd think that maybe they could devote their debugging efforts to more annoying bugs...

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re: Well, for an expansive definition of "bug" by Cylix · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That people who look for swear words in code have too much free time and too fragile personalities.

      --
      "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
    2. Re: Well, for an expansive definition of "bug" by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What is your definition of annoying?

      People who go around looking at code comment sections and bitch about swear words while adding absolutely nothing to the actual code development. That's pretty fucking annoying.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  2. The rot is growing stronger by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Obviously, we are moving more towards NewSpeak. It seems nobody reads the classics anymore and the same evil mistakes are getting prevalent again.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:The rot is growing stronger by djinn6 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Open source is a hobby, not a profession. Yes, there are some people who are paid to create open source software. They can censor their own communication if they so desire, or their boss might force it upon them, but they do not have a right to control others.

      IMO if a particular curse word is the best way to communicate something, then they should use it without reservation. E.g. writing "this implementation makes no fucking sense" communicates a very different level of confusion and urgency than "this implementation makes no sense" or "this needs to be refactored asap".

      Personally, if I saw that in the code base, I would not remove the curse word until I'm able to refactor the code and make the comment obsolete.

  3. Next it'll be git commit messages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I can see the one for this ticket now:

    "Updated comments to remove 'fuck' 'shit' and 'bollocks' as some millenial wanker decided to complain. Pussy."

  4. Kill all the children... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    One of my favourite code comments came from a French Canadian coder in a shutdown routine for a Unix daemon process that spawned a lot of child processes where he wrote: "And now we kill all the children...".

  5. Heat by JBMcB · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I've seen very select cases where swearing in comments can be useful.

    There was a piece of code I saw that people thought was a bug, but was actually purposefully written a particular way to get around a bug in the compiler. Even after comments like // SERIOUSLY do not touch this it's a workaround for CVXXXXXX

    People kept messing with it. Finally the dev checked in // DO NOT F****ING TOUCH THIS

    and the regressions went away. Again, niche applications, but still valid.

    --
    My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
  6. Changing the word won't make it so. by SchroedingersCat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As if removing the words will make that monstrous ball of crap better.

  7. Why are the swear words there? by ameline · · Score: 3, Funny

    Perhaps it might be a good idea to figure out (and fix) the underlying reasons prompting developers to swear in comments.

    As an aside, One late evening, I once constructed an sql query to look for a variety of swear words in the bug database used at Alias (before Autodesk bought us) -- Amon several, one stood out. It was originally opened by a customer (working in New Zealand on some small films made there -- something about a ring or whatever). It was epic in its use of invective. It tore a strip off of the software and the cretins who had written it (myself included, but not specifically named). The author had been hired and was working at Alias at the time of my query (this was a few years later) (Hi Dave :-) ). We had some fun passing the link to the bug report around.

    --
    Ian Ameline
  8. This is exactly why you should try not to swear by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People kept messing with it. Finally the dev checked in // DO NOT F****ING TOUCH THIS - and the regressions went away.

    This is exactly why you should really try not to swear, in writing or in speech...

    It's because it cheapens the words, and they loose effect.

    These days if someone called you a motherfucker, it's kind of like calling you annoying. It has no power.

    The reason that comment kept people away is because swearing in code is still relatively uncommon, so it has power. So keep the F-bombs out of code, so when the time comes where it is needed, it still works.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  9. Bidirectionality abuse (5:erocS) by tepples · · Score: 4, Informative

    Vandals were abusing Unicode bidirectionality control characters to break the layout and spoof moderation scores, which I've called the erocS problem. A secondary problem is many other Unicode code points are more suited for making lewd "ASCII art" (in the broad sense) than for polite discussion using English language prose. How did SoylentNews, which runs a fork of Slashdot's software, solve these two issues?

  10. Parents Television Council by tepples · · Score: 3, Insightful

    religion doesn't prohibit others from swearing. It only prohibits the religious person themselves from swearing.

    Until the religious people set up organizations like Parents Television Council that lobby governments to prohibit swearing.

  11. Re:So: that is English swear words dealed with ... by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 3, Informative

    No.

    Unless you submit a bug report to do so, which will be closed as not enough information, so still no.

    I bet you were proud of this comment. Stop it. You're not helping.