11 comments

[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 41.8 ms ] thread
OP deserves scorn for poor linguistic imagery when revealing what could be an amusing Friday HN story.

TL:DR; "Pervert" that likes "raping" compilers throws the D compiler in the trunk and sadistically torturing it in the woods before dumping its bound body in a lake after cutting off its fingers, hair, face, and other distinguishing marks.

There is no lulz area in this use of language. You may be technically interesting, but socially bankrupt. You may just be hunting for chest-bump points from your bro's.

There is nothing added by couching your experiment in the language of sexual assault.

I think this is a rather disproportionate "TL:DR;" and conclusion.

Here is the offending line:

> Ok, ok, I’m just a pervert and I love raping the D compiler.

Yes, it is immature, but your comment makes it sound like the entire article is like this. Ironically your post uses much harsher language, so I'm not sure what's proven here.

The point of my extension was to provide thought to the offhand comment. It is a form of comment-art.

Rape is not cute or small or some expression of freedom. It is gravely serious and offensive to 50%+ of the population and a massive turn-off to women and girls who might love programming... They were hiring at the OP's company. Do you want your mother/sister/daughter working there?

Re-Bro-purposing of language like this serves the purpose of opening discussion around underlying social issues. If you don't want to have a mature discussion around sexual violence and its institutional/professional impacts, don't use the words that suggest sexual violence is a humorous, normal thing 'you' like to do to compilers or people.

Bro's can continue to say and think these things. We all love freedom of expression. What's wonderful in this branch is that the discussion is not about compile-time raytracing. Get famous for being technically astute, not socially inept.

> massive turn-off to women and girls (...) Do you want your mother/sister/daughter working there?

Only women can be raped, right?

Not all "bros" are pro-rape. Especially, most men are not pro-rape so your 50% number is way off. Fake violence is funny! Looney Tunes, the Three Stooges (which sometimes had real violence), every kid who played bang-you're-dead and staged the most dramatic death roll - it's really funny. Rape isn't a problem because of people making jokes about not-real rape, it's a problem because people don't take real rape seriously.
I'm sorry your specific feelings were hurt, but I found it mildly amusing.
I have just reworded the article to be slightly less verbally offensive. "Pervert" stays (as that's only self-deprecating), but "raping" is now "abusing".

Yeah, that's still loaded, but please keep in mind that the whole article is very much tongue-in-cheek. It's not about bro culture, or trying to make rape seem funny. I should have known better, but don't assume that "rape" must imply "violence towards women". I am guilty of using the former term, but certainly not in the meaning of the latter. All the compilers among you have my sincerest apologies.

Touche and thanks for the consideration and adjustment.
I should note that this is a very old article (from 2006), before D had compile-time function execution. D was still around version 0.166.

I suppose that only makes this project more impressive, although its techniques are obsolete compared to modern D capabilities. With CTFE, you'd write the raytracing code as you would normally, then simply force evaluation to have it interpreted during compilation.

Flagging it for a crude, entirely unnecessary metaphor that could easily trigger victims.
Poor choice of words.