I wouldn't say that it has anything to do with the competence or skill expected of a professional.
It's more a matter of decorum.
Edit: I recognize that there are those who would like to load more connotations onto the term, but I think that even the above definition is just a bunch of marketing fluff promulgated by those who stand to benefit from people believing that they'll get a better result from paying someone to do something rather than doing it themselves.
Professionalism encompasses the whole lot. And I believe the presence of GTFO is not especially professional. It's spoiling for a fight, basically. And it got one, and it will lose. Pathetic, really.
(I really wanted to close with a saying along the lines of "one man's politically-correct bullshit is another person's basic standard of human decency", but I saw somebody say this - or something very much like it - once on HN, and it was followed up by a comment from somebody complaining that this level of politically-correct nonsense was infringing on his fundamental immutable human right not to be implicitly compared to something inhuman. Which I suppose is fair enough. And I certainly wouldn't want anybody to feel oppressed.)
As far as your saying goes - fair enough. The problem with total freedom, however, is that it's sort of an idealism. Now, I'm an idealistic kind of guy, but I realize that the idea is contradictory. Your freedom to feel "decent" infringes upon my freedom to drop my favorite dirty words in front of you, and vice-versa (though personally I don't give a fuck about being "made to feel inhuman").
Professionalism requires some decorum. Imagine if doctors called the release form the GTFO papers. If we want respect in our profession we have to stop acting like all we care about is pizza, red bull and acting like little teenagers.
Is something actually offensive or profane if nobody actually cares?
Excluding people who "care on the behalf of people who might care" ("we shouldn't do this, not because it offends me, but because it may offend others"), is anybody actually bothered by the word "fuck"?
Well I mean, also excluding isolated religious communities in Lancaster county that still use minced oaths....
Though, I must admit guilt in this as well; that time I 'contributed' to CoffeeScript by fixing an ascii art inconsistency in the cup of coffee's water vapor in the README:
> GTFO is crass and doesn't belong in internet standards.
Oh, STFU.
Seriously, though, I see the point. I'm kinda torn on issues likes this. On one hand, language in a standard, particularly as it relates to implemented messages, should meet some minimum level of decorum and avoid colloquialisms. On the other hand, stuffy language battles are pointless and distract from the primary goal of releasing a usable standard with usable error messages. On this particular issue I lean towards the former winning out.
Edit: someone else mentioned the word I was trying to think of.
Understanding by the greatest possible number of people should be the goal here, in my opinion.
GOAWAY makes plenty sense when compared to GTFO, assuming that not everyone who learns of it intentionally is well-versed in that of which GTFO is a relatively smaller part. Grandma wouldn't necessarily get GTFO (right away, anyway) but she would likely pick up GOAWAY in a snap.
Of course, the above assumes a section of people who are fluent (enough?) in English to grok the spec.
Ultimately HTTP 2.0 is like IPv6, no-one actually cares.
Having said that, people do get upset about 0xDEADBEEF and 0xCAFEBABE, those people need to get lives. Or come up with some other words using only 6 letters.
Heh, maybe. I'd be interested to know if there have ever been any documented cases of vegans actually being offended by 0xDEADBEEF (in anything other than a joking way). Seems like something that is only 'hypothetically offensive'.
Unfortunately, the type of people that actually get offended by this stuff tend to go around looking for this stuff. And once it finds it, it starts twitter campaign against you and your project.
If you are have no public talking experience/training, you are going to loose and be labeled ugly names.
I kind of aspire to be that much of a "Jimmy Rustler" one day. I make it a mission to treat people with actual respect, but to be recognized and campaigned against for something like coding a not politically correct, but totally benign protocol into existence, would be an accomplishment I could only dream of at this point. I'd be flattered if someone cared that much.
Being the target of such a campaign can have 'real-world' implications, so you might want to make sure you have "fuck you"-money before looking for that sort of fight.
I personally am a fan of professional tools breaking away from the need to be serious all the time.
It is just that I experience joy when I find little things like GTFO in the world which not only make sense in their context but have a bit of humor. So I guess I just disagree with the idea that standards should not contain anything crass.
Also I have a question concerning the 4th point as I am admittedly unfamiliar with the HTTP 2.0 spec.
"GTFO, if it really stands for "General Termination of Future Operations," has a surprising definition and may produce confusion. We should strive for absolute clarity above all else in editorial changes."
Can someone elaborate on what the confusion it would produce would be?
I believe that the surprise would come from it not meaning "get the f* out." Which makes perfect sense to me - GTFO has a meaning, and re-backronyming it can only harm understanding of the standard. Also consider non-native English speakers, which is really important when developing international standards.
The fact that someone suggested a corresponding "HTTP TITS" should set off at least minor warning bells that "HTTP GTFO" is not a good thing to put in the standard. I certainly don't want to see HTTP LOL (Long Overdue Listen), HTTP WAT (Wireless Ask Transmit), etc.
How does surprise about what the acronym stands for lead to confusion about what it does? This question is hopefully more along the lines of what I wanted to ask and clearly didn't.
Edit: To further clarify I mean surprise about what it stands for when both interpretations convey a similar idea.
> I believe that the surprise would come from it not meaning "get the f out." Which makes perfect sense to me - GTFO has a meaning, and re-backronyming it can only harm understanding of the standard.*
Considering the general highlevel meaning of "get the fuck out" and "General Termination of Future Operations" in the context of this protocol is the same, is it really going to harm anybodies understanding of the standard? Worse case scenario, people know what it does, but are surprised that it is an acronym for something "SFW".
> Also consider non-native English speakers, which is really important when developing international standards.
Is the concern here that they will not be familiar with the typical "internet meaning" of GTFO? They might not get the joke, but I don't see how that would harm their understanding of the standard. They'll read about GTFO, learn that it means "General Termination of Future Operations", learn what that means, and they'll be good to go. Just because they don't get a chuckle out of it doesn't mean that their ability to work with it is impeded.
My guess is people would see the message, know it's an acronym, but refuse to believe that the UrbanDictionary results they got from googling were the actual explanation?
My favorite example of professional tool fun has to be the "Cowardly refusing to create an empty directory" result in tar (http://erictarn.com/post/393019949/tar-cowardly-refusing-to-...). That adverb adds a lot of character and justification to the message.
It's surprising in that it doesn't stand for what most people use it to stand for, and its definition can't be inferred from a lay-understanding of the term. (Whereas "GOAWAY" has a bit more of that "I bet I know what this is before I even look it up" feeling.)
If there was ever an example of frantically searching for a reason to take offense to something, this would be it. There are probably half a dozen legitimate reasons not to use GTFO in a spec, and this is almost certainly not one of them.
GOAWAY is less than ideal not because of the "GOAWAY", but because of the association with the expression "Go away, ${RANDOM_INSULT}."
Seriously, you're no better than the person who sees "brogrammer" when the word "bro" is mentioned. This is such a narrow and ridiculously flawed way of thinking.
I think this is a good change because GOAWAY is simpler, more obvious, and has a tone matching the actual operation. Plus, the har-har pretense that GTFO means "General termination of future operations" is childish.
With that out of the way, the pearl-clutching about the word "fuck" and how unprofessional it is irritates me. We have this weird notion that it's OK for us to curse individually but that there's this wider world out there that hates cursing. I don't think that's true and we should stop acting like it is. More generally, I think this almost arbitrary division of professional vs unprofessional things [1] does a big disservice to actual differences in professionalism like courtesy, personal responsibility, and reliability. "If you follow these silly rules, you can pretend to be an adult!"
[1] Joel Spolsky has a great essay about this that I wasn't immediately able to find. It mentioned, among other things, how silly it is that the smell of popcorn is said to be "unprofessional".
I'm less concerned about the professionalism side of it than I am the confusion one. Do non-English speakers use GTFO? If not we've just given them a hard to remember acronym for no good reason.
I think people know what it means, but the bigger issue is that a lot of non-native English speakers do not parse nuance very well, and might not understand that the term in itself is somewhat strong.
I've heard a lot of foreigners (especially people from nordic countries or germany) speaking English in a way that is a lot ruder than they might realize. One thing is the personality (they seem to be more direct), but there have been many instances where it's obvious they aren't aware that the language they're using is way too strong for their situation. This goes doubly so if your main English education is internet forums.
Not saying that it's a reason to remove GTFO, but the humor (which is slightly in the very exaggerated vocabulary, which seems to be misinterpreted as a strong intent) is probably lost in translation.
Fuck and other profanities are signal words for extreme emotional state. Professionalism includes remaining fair and emotionally unaffected under most reasonable conditions. Hence the dissonance of using "fuck" and other charged (culture-dependent of course) words and sentiments in work life.
Signalling an extreme emotional state is only one of many uses for the word "fuck". It is an incredibly versatile word: (probably nsfw) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN5eYFH8HZ8
With that out of the way, the pearl-clutching about the word "fuck" and how unprofessional it is irritates me. We have this weird notion that it's OK for us to curse individually but that there's this wider world out there that hates cursing.
Different contexts call for different language and tone of voice. I don't think cursing is a special case in this regard; it's just that it is by definition harsh and forceful and informal and thus does not belong in formal language like standard documents.
You don't curse around people for the same reason you chew with your mouth closed... to be polite. That is, you do it out of consideration for others' feelings. It doesn't matter if you understand why someone could find something offensive or if you meant anything by it. Similarly, it's unprofessional to use other offensive words (such as sexist or racist terms, even the ones that aren't bleeped out in popular media).
But use whatever language you want. At the end of the day, you don't have to be considerate, but they don't have to consider you professional.
Not that being unprofessional is always a big deal. Lots of people and companies are very successful without being considered professional.
Hold up, the reason I don't chew with my mouth open is that people don't want to see my chewed up food (basically pre-vomit).
The reason why I do feel comfortable swearing is because people actually don't have their feelings damaged or hurt by it.
The reason I don't insult people is because people actually do have their feelings hurt by it.
The reason I don't use misogynistic or racist language (this notably includes a few choice "swear words") is because people actually do have their feelings hurt by it.
Three of these are rational taboos because people actually are bothered by them. The other is an irrational taboo, a relic that use to be rational but hasn't been for decades. Not using the word "fuck" is on the same level as wearing a tie to work, there is no remaining reason to do it outside of tradition. Not chewing with your mouth open, or not using misogynistic swear words, is more on the level of putting on underwear and pants before going to work. You do it for the benefit of others, not solely out of tradition.
I have definitely known people actually bothered by cursing, though I have every expectation they are not as prevalent as they once were. I don't know quite what the prevalence is, and I don't know what portion of people need to be bothered by something for it to effect your default behavior. Obviously, if you're in a group you know to have individuals (or not) that are offended any behavior and you wish to avoid (or not) offending those individuals, act accordingly.
The closest I have ever encountered to people being actually bothered by swearing is people who are bothered by children swearing. Teachers that are shocked that children casually use profanity in daily conversations between each other, and the like. Even then though, they aren't actually bothered by the word, but rather by the notion of a child using it.
I would be disciplined as a child for saying that something was stupid or dumb, but it's not like those words bothered my parents. As an adult, when I talk to them I casually use profanity in a variety of cases, and so do they.
Of course if I used profanity directed at them in an insulting manner, they would be upset (as would most people), but that is a reaction to an insult, not the words that were used for the insult.
Some people don't want to discuss sexual acts and bodily functions. Trite as they are, swear words generally refer to one of those things.
But besides that, it really doesn't matter if the offense is irrational. It's irrational to freak out at people for one puff of second-hand smoke (assuming no allergies). That doesn't make it any less rude to smoke in peoples' faces.
OK. How about this? Putting a not-germane political rant (Ron Paul, Tea Party, Occupy, ...take your pick) in the documentation of your library is also unprofessional. It doesn't hurt anyone, but it needlessly causes friction and annoys people for no real gain. It's not strictly wrong (in a moral or ethical sense), but it's certainly not professional.
The word "fuck" evolved past "sexual acts and bodily functions" _centuries_ ago. Do you have the same objection of "screwing off"? I anticipate you claiming that you have objections to the phrase, but do you have the same magnitude of objections? Or is one worse than the other?
Second hand smoke smells. That is an actual reason to not blow smoke into somebodies face, it isn't just tradition.
Putting weird political rants into your documentation would presumably not serve a purpose. The word fuck, despite your disapproval of it, has versatile meaning and can be used in a variety of ways in general speech. If you want a political equivalent, it would be like referencing luddism in documentation. Luddism, originally referring to a specific political movement, has long since transcended its literal connotations. It would not be considered particularly bizarre to use the word "luddism" or "Luddite" in documentation.
We have this weird notion that it's OK for us to curse individually but that there's this wider world out there that hates cursing. I don't think that's true and we should stop acting like it is.
Hi, I'm part of the world you don't believe exists. I don't curse, the people I work with don't curse, the vast majority of my friends don't curse, and I've never heard a relative curse. It's not OK to be offensive just because you don't believe that there are people whose vocabulary is cleaner than yours.
Yes, it's far more professional to paint the bike shed blue, chartreuse is difficult to understand and conveys the message that those who bike to work are drunks which is certainly not what we should be trying to convey.
I know how a lot of us like to condemn "political correctness" or whatnot, but saying something crass (and , honestly, I've never seen someone use GTFO in a non-crass situation), where half of the shock value is just the language, is pretty pointless.
There's a lot of stuff out there by comedians about how saying "fuck" is probably the cheapest way to get laughs. It's pretty much cheating. At least saying your server is a teapot is slightly unexpected.
considering what the output is supposed to be, I would think something like PLZSTOP would be slightly better than GOAWAY, but in any case GTFO is not even really funny, kinda wears away at our already limited supply of swear words, and isn't worthy of the high-grade humor that is internet specification humor.
I don't think GTFO is as crass as the actual word 'fuck'. FUBAR, WTF, PITA, and SOL are certainly colloquial and arcane, but I don't believe they're considered swear words per se (maybe WTF).
I think this episode and the recent brouhaha from someone naming a CLI "bro" have shown that an attempt at humor in naming things generally just diverts the attention from the technology to other things.
It's more that naming things is one of the two hardest things in CS, along with concurrency and off by one errors. But seriously, there are lots of clever names that everybody loves, it's just that it's easy to get clever wrong and you should think about how your name could be misinterpreted.
And you should avoid swearing, sexuality, and violence like the plague.
Android has android.util.Log.wtf[1], "What a Terrible Failure". That makes me laugh and this makes me laugh and I'm all for a little humor in specifications
I'm surprised nobody has brought up that this was originally called GOAWAY in the spec, and that it was only renamed from GOAWAY to GTFO five days ago. It's not like it was always named GTFO or that people are remotely attached to it. In fact, people involved in the process (ie, the working group mailing list) only heard about it after it was renamed.
(I realise that's because this isn't a protocol-related issue, only a documentation one, but my argument is that there's no real impact in the change back.)
This thread is fascinating. For an industry obsessed with A / B testing the colour of a button or the placement of a link there are plenty of people who don't seem to realise that details matter.
Sure, they shouldn't matter, and it'd be great if we could get past them to actual competence, but not swearing in front of customers or wearing smarter clothing are the kinds of things that make a difference.
90 comments
[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadAgreed, although I got the impression the internet just stopped caring?
It's more a matter of decorum.
Edit: I recognize that there are those who would like to load more connotations onto the term, but I think that even the above definition is just a bunch of marketing fluff promulgated by those who stand to benefit from people believing that they'll get a better result from paying someone to do something rather than doing it themselves.
(I really wanted to close with a saying along the lines of "one man's politically-correct bullshit is another person's basic standard of human decency", but I saw somebody say this - or something very much like it - once on HN, and it was followed up by a comment from somebody complaining that this level of politically-correct nonsense was infringing on his fundamental immutable human right not to be implicitly compared to something inhuman. Which I suppose is fair enough. And I certainly wouldn't want anybody to feel oppressed.)
As far as your saying goes - fair enough. The problem with total freedom, however, is that it's sort of an idealism. Now, I'm an idealistic kind of guy, but I realize that the idea is contradictory. Your freedom to feel "decent" infringes upon my freedom to drop my favorite dirty words in front of you, and vice-versa (though personally I don't give a fuck about being "made to feel inhuman").
So, what do we do?
Excluding people who "care on the behalf of people who might care" ("we shouldn't do this, not because it offends me, but because it may offend others"), is anybody actually bothered by the word "fuck"?
Well I mean, also excluding isolated religious communities in Lancaster county that still use minced oaths....
https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/pull/3193
Question: “What was it called?”
Dennis Ritchie: "Well, the second letter was different"
Ergo, "Oh Fsck!"
No reason, just looked right. Plus my manager probably wouldn't like me saying things like "I just need to fuck this disk really quick."
Oh, STFU.
Seriously, though, I see the point. I'm kinda torn on issues likes this. On one hand, language in a standard, particularly as it relates to implemented messages, should meet some minimum level of decorum and avoid colloquialisms. On the other hand, stuffy language battles are pointless and distract from the primary goal of releasing a usable standard with usable error messages. On this particular issue I lean towards the former winning out.
Edit: someone else mentioned the word I was trying to think of.
GOAWAY makes plenty sense when compared to GTFO, assuming that not everyone who learns of it intentionally is well-versed in that of which GTFO is a relatively smaller part. Grandma wouldn't necessarily get GTFO (right away, anyway) but she would likely pick up GOAWAY in a snap.
Of course, the above assumes a section of people who are fluent (enough?) in English to grok the spec.
EDIT: Grammerr.
EDIT: Clarification in response to Vonmoltke.
English profanity has a tendency to be better understood by other languages and countries than the appropriate western vernacular.
I like this stuff. It reminds me that humans with a sense of humor build the things we use everyday, and not some emotionless robot.
Having said that, people do get upset about 0xDEADBEEF and 0xCAFEBABE, those people need to get lives. Or come up with some other words using only 6 letters.
I'll wager someone out there, perhaps unwittingly, has 0xDEADBABE in their binary, God help them if the twitterati finds out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexspeak#cite_note-13
If you are have no public talking experience/training, you are going to loose and be labeled ugly names.
It is just that I experience joy when I find little things like GTFO in the world which not only make sense in their context but have a bit of humor. So I guess I just disagree with the idea that standards should not contain anything crass.
Also I have a question concerning the 4th point as I am admittedly unfamiliar with the HTTP 2.0 spec.
"GTFO, if it really stands for "General Termination of Future Operations," has a surprising definition and may produce confusion. We should strive for absolute clarity above all else in editorial changes."
Can someone elaborate on what the confusion it would produce would be?
The fact that someone suggested a corresponding "HTTP TITS" should set off at least minor warning bells that "HTTP GTFO" is not a good thing to put in the standard. I certainly don't want to see HTTP LOL (Long Overdue Listen), HTTP WAT (Wireless Ask Transmit), etc.
Humor is great, but good standards are better.
Edit: To further clarify I mean surprise about what it stands for when both interpretations convey a similar idea.
Considering the general highlevel meaning of "get the fuck out" and "General Termination of Future Operations" in the context of this protocol is the same, is it really going to harm anybodies understanding of the standard? Worse case scenario, people know what it does, but are surprised that it is an acronym for something "SFW".
> Also consider non-native English speakers, which is really important when developing international standards.
Is the concern here that they will not be familiar with the typical "internet meaning" of GTFO? They might not get the joke, but I don't see how that would harm their understanding of the standard. They'll read about GTFO, learn that it means "General Termination of Future Operations", learn what that means, and they'll be good to go. Just because they don't get a chuckle out of it doesn't mean that their ability to work with it is impeded.
My favorite example of professional tool fun has to be the "Cowardly refusing to create an empty directory" result in tar (http://erictarn.com/post/393019949/tar-cowardly-refusing-to-...). That adverb adds a lot of character and justification to the message.
Well I mean, I hate when that happens, but the message is great.
GTFO is less than ideal not because of the F, but because of the association with the "Tits or GTFO" meme.
https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tits+or+GTFO
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tits-or-gtfo
Seriously, you're no better than the person who sees "brogrammer" when the word "bro" is mentioned. This is such a narrow and ridiculously flawed way of thinking.
With that out of the way, the pearl-clutching about the word "fuck" and how unprofessional it is irritates me. We have this weird notion that it's OK for us to curse individually but that there's this wider world out there that hates cursing. I don't think that's true and we should stop acting like it is. More generally, I think this almost arbitrary division of professional vs unprofessional things [1] does a big disservice to actual differences in professionalism like courtesy, personal responsibility, and reliability. "If you follow these silly rules, you can pretend to be an adult!"
[1] Joel Spolsky has a great essay about this that I wasn't immediately able to find. It mentioned, among other things, how silly it is that the smell of popcorn is said to be "unprofessional".
I've heard a lot of foreigners (especially people from nordic countries or germany) speaking English in a way that is a lot ruder than they might realize. One thing is the personality (they seem to be more direct), but there have been many instances where it's obvious they aren't aware that the language they're using is way too strong for their situation. This goes doubly so if your main English education is internet forums.
Not saying that it's a reason to remove GTFO, but the humor (which is slightly in the very exaggerated vocabulary, which seems to be misinterpreted as a strong intent) is probably lost in translation.
Different contexts call for different language and tone of voice. I don't think cursing is a special case in this regard; it's just that it is by definition harsh and forceful and informal and thus does not belong in formal language like standard documents.
But use whatever language you want. At the end of the day, you don't have to be considerate, but they don't have to consider you professional.
Not that being unprofessional is always a big deal. Lots of people and companies are very successful without being considered professional.
The reason why I do feel comfortable swearing is because people actually don't have their feelings damaged or hurt by it.
The reason I don't insult people is because people actually do have their feelings hurt by it.
The reason I don't use misogynistic or racist language (this notably includes a few choice "swear words") is because people actually do have their feelings hurt by it.
Three of these are rational taboos because people actually are bothered by them. The other is an irrational taboo, a relic that use to be rational but hasn't been for decades. Not using the word "fuck" is on the same level as wearing a tie to work, there is no remaining reason to do it outside of tradition. Not chewing with your mouth open, or not using misogynistic swear words, is more on the level of putting on underwear and pants before going to work. You do it for the benefit of others, not solely out of tradition.
I would be disciplined as a child for saying that something was stupid or dumb, but it's not like those words bothered my parents. As an adult, when I talk to them I casually use profanity in a variety of cases, and so do they.
Of course if I used profanity directed at them in an insulting manner, they would be upset (as would most people), but that is a reaction to an insult, not the words that were used for the insult.
But besides that, it really doesn't matter if the offense is irrational. It's irrational to freak out at people for one puff of second-hand smoke (assuming no allergies). That doesn't make it any less rude to smoke in peoples' faces.
OK. How about this? Putting a not-germane political rant (Ron Paul, Tea Party, Occupy, ...take your pick) in the documentation of your library is also unprofessional. It doesn't hurt anyone, but it needlessly causes friction and annoys people for no real gain. It's not strictly wrong (in a moral or ethical sense), but it's certainly not professional.
Second hand smoke smells. That is an actual reason to not blow smoke into somebodies face, it isn't just tradition.
Putting weird political rants into your documentation would presumably not serve a purpose. The word fuck, despite your disapproval of it, has versatile meaning and can be used in a variety of ways in general speech. If you want a political equivalent, it would be like referencing luddism in documentation. Luddism, originally referring to a specific political movement, has long since transcended its literal connotations. It would not be considered particularly bizarre to use the word "luddism" or "Luddite" in documentation.
On the ridiculous notion of "unnecessary": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_osQvkeNRM#t=105
Hi, I'm part of the world you don't believe exists. I don't curse, the people I work with don't curse, the vast majority of my friends don't curse, and I've never heard a relative curse. It's not OK to be offensive just because you don't believe that there are people whose vocabulary is cleaner than yours.
There's a lot of stuff out there by comedians about how saying "fuck" is probably the cheapest way to get laughs. It's pretty much cheating. At least saying your server is a teapot is slightly unexpected.
considering what the output is supposed to be, I would think something like PLZSTOP would be slightly better than GOAWAY, but in any case GTFO is not even really funny, kinda wears away at our already limited supply of swear words, and isn't worthy of the high-grade humor that is internet specification humor.
And you should avoid swearing, sexuality, and violence like the plague.
[1] http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/Log.html...
(I realise that's because this isn't a protocol-related issue, only a documentation one, but my argument is that there's no real impact in the change back.)
Sure, they shouldn't matter, and it'd be great if we could get past them to actual competence, but not swearing in front of customers or wearing smarter clothing are the kinds of things that make a difference.