
Microsoft code contains the phrase 'big boobs' ... Yes, really - justauser
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-code-contains-phrase-big-boobs-yes-really
======
guard-of-terra
"Puerile sniggering at breasts contributes to the continuing impression that
software development is a boys club where girls aren't welcome" This is a
primary building block of such articles.

But in fact magic numbers are kind of art: good art shocks you a little - or a
lot; more for people who are less free. Who gets offended by big boobs? People
who think they are religious, as if Jesus had anything against boobs; people
who think boobs are strategic weapons that should be controlled; people who
are afraid of any life because life is non-professional; people who try to
close their eyes on the existence of two genders; and some women that are
insecure.

I feel sorry for the latter because I don't want any woman in the world to
feel insecure. But for all other people, it's like they had this demon inside
and we're exorcising and it tries to escape the host body by ripping its way
outside. It's a good thing. Maybe they'll become less religious and more
spiritual; maybe they'll become less restrictive; maybe they'll become less
"professional" and more skilled; maybe they'll be forced to acknowledge woman
and man.

I don't think it helps insecure girls, I even think it might actually harm
them, but is this the reason to harm art? It never was. Who is responsible for
insecure people? It's society. Who should be punished for that? Not artists,
mind you.

~~~
wtracy
"but is this the reason to harm art?"

No.

But it's a damn good reason to keep your so-called "art" out of the workplace.
Keep your "art" in the galleries where it belongs.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Why would we? Because you tell us so? Guess what - you fit the profile;
"people who are afraid of any life because life is non-professional". Making
you feel uncomfortable might cure you one day, we're be trying like
Hippocrates supposed us to.

Galleries are the places where art dies. If you'll consult art history, you'll
not see much straight-to-gallery art. It had some purpose. It was built into
lives.

Modern art should be on streets, it should be embedded into city (or code). In
fact, in any city there's a lot of accidental art. Something random but just
too good.

~~~
wtracy
No, I just get upset when women are reduced to sex objects, particularly in a
context where people are forced to endure it because they have to work for a
living.

I suppose you would also support putting up racial epithets in a corporate
lobby and calling it "art"?

~~~
guard-of-terra
"women are reduced to sex objects"

I feel like some kind of infernal being talking to me right now.

How do big boobs reduce women (which women? how many of them? what's their
names?) to sex objects? What's a sex object anyway? Are you supposed to deny
the existence of big boobs to prevent it? What happens if truth leaks?

This is exactly a set of questions that DOES NOT cross the mind of people who
drop "women are reduced to sex objects" in the conversations. You are afraid
to think. You want to club people with blocks over their heads.

That's why art is a good thing. Is reflects the damage back to you. You
desperately need to make peace with your sexuality; and once you do, the
shadows will disappear and big boobs will be just big boobs and nothing more.

I hope that viewing those pieces I've linked will make you a happier and
calmer person. Cheers and good night.

~~~
udoprog
It is not far fetched given that "big boobs" is interpreted in a societal
context which is dominated by male gaze. That is, big boobs is "artsy" and
"funny" for a man, since he is the target audience of the joke. Someone at the
other end of the joke might take offense. Especially if you experience similar
events on a daily basis within your professional environment. Just because
something could qualify as art, doesn't mean that you are not allowed to
scrutinize it.

I suggest that you employ a bit of empathy instead of drawing assumptions
about the persona of the other party.

Putting up twenty links to Wulff & Morgenthaler (epic comics) and using it as
an educational/critical source without context only dilutes what you are
trying to say, i.e. people should more relaxed.

That being said, being able to figure out how to spell anything sensible using
8 sixteen-digit letters is an accomplishment.

~~~
guard-of-terra
I fail to understand the step where the other end takes offense. It's almost
like underpant gnomes: 1\. Big boobs in code. 2\. ????? 3\. Offended people.

What's that stage?

Big boobs are a fact of everyday life. If for some reason their mention casts
such strong emotions, perhaps there are deep problems in the workplace
culture. Art lets you expose that. But art is not a source of those
hypothetical problems, rather than reactions to it are merely indicators.

I don't say people should be more relaxed. People should get better; It
usually involves them getting a little worse first. Force them to reflect.
Force them to negotiate peace with their sexuality and their environment.

------
jack-r-abbit
Until it is proven that the coder who put that in was, in fact, a male it is
highly sexist to just assume that it was a man and that ladies are not capable
of being childish or being into big boobs as well. ;)

------
revelation
The point of this is to make sure you recognize a number as the magic number
it is when you see it scrolling by in a debugger. Preprocessor directives have
this problem where they don't survive the preprocessor stage.

Its not just a meaningless joke, it has an actual raison d'être. Of course
there might be less offending choices, but this hardly ranks among the top of
the problems that plague open source development (communities).

------
voidr
Meanwhile in Coupling:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_N020ZVbmc&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_N020ZVbmc&feature=related)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks2MCslf0F4>

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkU8PAVXo98&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkU8PAVXo98&feature=related)

------
pavel_lishin
To be fair, 0xDEADBEEF may be considered offensive to hindus.

~~~
jgeorge
I had a coworker once lament the use of 0xDEADBEEF because he was a
vegetarian.

I'm bothered by what lowest common non-offensive denominator we will
eventually have to reach. Is 0xCAFEBABE not only offensive to women but is it
also offensive to male Starbucks employees?

I don't have the answers. I don't even think I know what the questions are. I
just weep for society as a whole over stuff like this.

~~~
meric
Use both 0xCAFED00D and 0xCAFEBABE at the same time might alleviate some of
those concerns.

------
benwerd
That's a horrible way to talk about Steve Ballmer.

~~~
benwerd
Thanks for the upvotes, but I now really regret this comment. Juvenile stuff.

------
voidr
So writing 'big boobs' in hexspeak makes you sexist....

I have a problem understanding this.

Whom should this offend?

How does this offend anyone?

How is it sexist when it didn't even specify the which sex's boob it is
referring to?

If I name something 'curly_blond_hair' in my code, is that sexist?

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Sumaso
Looks like another slow news day...

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wtracy
I'm left wondering now what on earth those engineers were thinking.

Did they really not understand that this was going into an open source
project? Or did the Microsofties somehow think this would work as an elaborate
way of discrediting the Linux project?

~~~
guard-of-terra
It is fully how people now are forced to acknowledge lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transsexual coders, but they fail to grind to acknowledge big boobs in the
code.

Hint: if you have coders with gender, you get code with gender.

------
mun2mun
It was discussed in reddit a week ago
[http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/wi4bf/inappropriate_m...](http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/wi4bf/inappropriate_microsoft_linux_kernel_contribution/)
.

------
pktm
This is hardly the worst thing I've ever seen in source code - mine or
others'. Heck, I had a developer once send me something where the
"placeholder" image was a dog turd.

Surely this can't be worth all the oh-noes.

------
fein
Wasn't this already resolved??

<https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/7/13/203>

