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Is it OK to use abusive content on code?
In SO, I had saw that a person was writing lot of abusive words inside code. Just like,
if(a==b){
print("f***")
}
I had flagged on that post with little bit explanation.
The user gave some abusive content.
But, they declined and said that, that's the code of author. But, there's lot of young programmers right there also. Those type of words can "distract" them. So, I want to know if it OK to post like that in Software Codidact also.
Cause, in this post @JohnDoea had written word (Brainfuck) like this.
Should we mark those posts as rude or other reason?
2 answers
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Yes, that particular post should be marked as abusive and the code replaced by.
if(a==b){
print("We have a problem, a is equal to b")
}
Assuming that indeed the code is dealing with a situation where a==b is a problem. Would need the whole question and answer to know for sure. I don't even know what language is that. No semicolon at the end?
There are plenty of good reasons to include curse words. In example, when writing a verifier for Mexico's RFC Codes the documentation for such codes states that 40 combinations are not allowed, like CACA or way worse. You can't write clear code for that without including those rude words. Let those be.
So, gratuitous cursing not integral to the answer? Edit and or flag. Unavoidable cursing for technical reasons? Let it be.
But I'd like to also answer a related question. Not just when, but who should mark and edit these posts. We should only edit them if we have the technical expertise to write the answer/question ourselves. Otherwise, how can we differentiate something which is a technical requirement from something which is not? There may be cases where even not having the expertise we can tell that such abusive language is not needed because it is so blatant. But event in such case it is sensible to try getting help from someone in Discord.
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"Brainfuck" is the name of a programming language; using the full name of the language is perfectly fine. We don't need to bowlderize proper names.
As for your other example - foul language in code samples - I'd say it's discouraged but not explicitly disallowed. If it's present in the original code, it makes sense to include it in the question, but we don't need to encourage gratuitous use of foul language on the site.
And in some cases, including the swear words can be necessary - such as a question about regex for detecting abusive language. It's kinda necessary to leave in in that case.
Essentially - use common sense; if it's essential to include, include it, including proper names of languages. If it's part of the original code it's probably not an issue, although replacing it (when originally posted by the OP) wouldn't be remiss either (not a huge deal either way). Gratuitous swearing isn't something we want to encourage here, though.
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