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From: pgf@american.com (Paul Fox)
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: Linux UFS support and FreeBSD
Followup-To: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Date: 23 Dec 1996 21:07:52 GMT
Organization: American Internet Corporation
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okay, as the "offendee", i'll respond. but i won't let this go
on much longer... honest.
:
: >3) Unix is replete with innunendo. For example, there is a humorous piece
: >that lists a bunch of jokes that you can play, for example typing "make love"
: >produces the response "don't know how to make love" There are others more
: >"offensive" than that, a number of error messages were deliberately constructed
these are jokes. jokes which usually involve the user wanting to get the
computer to say something funny. sure, lots of people name their
temp files "shit", just so they get to type "cat shit". big deal. that
doesn't mean the author of the "cat" command was telling a dirty joke -- the
user was.
: I agree, fully ... and this is my $0.5 contribution to your
: comment: the offendee should read the celibacy(1), condom(1) and
: sex(6) man pages that come with the Emacs distributions (hosted
: under /usr/{lib,share}/emacs/19.??/etc. Those where the greatest
: jokes I've ever readen!
and again, these are _jokes_, obviously meant to be funny. and yes, i
agree that these examples _are_ funny. and yes, they might offend someone.
the example i was complaining about did not strike me as intended as a
joke, but as a mean-spirited dig at the designers of the system being
re-implemented by the programmer. it struck (and still strikes) me as very
unprofessional, unlike well-crafted humor, which can be funny,
professional, and get a point across, all at once.
i'm done, and i'll stop complaining. but i'll be very disappointed if that
sort of style becomes the norm for linux programming.
paul
---------------------
paul fox american internet corporation
pgf@american.com (home: pgf@foxharp.boston.ma.us)