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bad language
correlating curse words with code
Every programmer has gotten caught cursing at their code (or maybe a fellow programmer). But which languages inspire the most profanity? U.K.-
based web developer Andrew Vos decided to settle the question by pulling just under one million commit messages from GitHub and correlating the
presence of certain choice words to the corresponding project’s programming language.
words in them. Did that surprise you’d like to share?
SHit you? (For comparison’s sake, my AV: These were my picks:
175 emails have a much higher rate • f*ck all the tests, you’re
of profanity.)
going to have to live
F*CK AV: Yes, that was very surprising • f*ck git
without them
to me, but I think that because all
86 these projects are open source, • chunk of shit i wrote over
people tend to be more civilized.
Some of the larger companies I whiskey
piSS have worked for have way more • f*ck you and your
rubygems
5 swear words in commits! • Leave it to Chelimsky to
f*ck up a simple name
MotHerF*CKer PM: Your results put C++, Ruby, like Marston
and JavaScript on top, then Perl
1 and C, then C# and Java, with PM: “Zomg”? Weren’t we done
Python and PHP at the bottom.
Have you tried to draw any with “zomg” in 2005?
Patrick Miller: Why’d you finding out how many swear conclusions with the data? Does AV: Probably got to do with me
go through the Git commit words I could find. this jibe with your understanding hanging around Ruby developers
messages and correlate of the respective languages too much.
profanity to programming PM: Can you elaborate on your (and perhaps the people who
language? Lazy Friday methodology? use them)? PM: If you do the study again,
afternoon? AV: I wrote a Ruby script to search AV: Seeing Ruby at the top was is there anything you’d like to
Andrew Vos: I hadn’t written for “shit,” “f*ck,” “piss,” and a huge surprise for me, because change about it?
any code in about a week, and I “motherf*cker.” For the stats to be it’s by far my favorite language. AV: I would have loved to have
really felt like writing something. valid, I had to rip an equal number I can’t believe there’s so much access to all the commit
I decided to rip a huge chunk of of commit messages from each hate for it, but I also think that messages, because the results
commit messages and maybe do language. Ruby developers tend to care less do seem strange. Network speed
some sort of statistical analysis about being professional and are was an issue when downloading
on them. I was hanging around in PM: Out of almost one million generally more fun. One of my all the commits. I would most
the IRC channel #ruby-lang and commit messages, you only most hated languages, PHP, has probably have to spend a few
someone may have mentioned pulled about 250 or so with curse the least swear words! I definitely weeks downloading commit
expected it to be at the top. I think messages if I wanted them all.
this is because larger companies It would be great if GitHub could
tend to use PHP more. give me access to their servers
C# 20
for a day!
C++ 56 PM: You also posted the list of —Patrick Miller
commit messages with swear
C 28 words in them. Got any favorites
Java 20
JavaSCript 46 oMg 30
perl 30 zoMg 16
pHp 4 WtF 76
pytHon 10 lol 65
ruby 53 roFl 2
4 game developer | october 2012