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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
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