
Rename GTFO to GOAWAY - ziyan
https://github.com/http2/http2-spec/pull/366
======
icambron
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".

~~~
mmatants
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.

~~~
Crito
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](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN5eYFH8HZ8)

~~~
humanrebar
Technically that's true, but technically you can type in all caps without
being emotional.

------
genericuser
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?

~~~
stevejohnson
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.

Humor is great, but good standards are better.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
WAT is a perfectly valid acronym, actually.

~~~
Crito
Certainly no more problematic than SMTP's HELO...

------
batbomb
Dennis Ritchie: “So fsck was originally called something else”

Question: “What was it called?”

Dennis Ritchie: "Well, the second letter was different"

~~~
Crito
Given the standard scenario in which fsck is used, the alternative name seems
pretty appropriate.

~~~
alexchamberlain
Booting up?

~~~
SDGT
Booting up after your shutdown sequence was "The power went out and I don't
have a UPS"

Ergo, "Oh Fsck!"

------
mason240
People are staring to really scrape the bottom of barrel of things to be upset
about.

~~~
yid
Nobody seems upset. This is about professionalism.

~~~
pohl
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._

~~~
xutopia
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.

~~~
redblacktree
I'm not sure I'm willing to make the trade.

------
vonmoltke
> _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.

~~~
SDGT
The type of people that actually get offended by this stuff are rarely those
involved with actually working with the protocol.

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.

~~~
gaius
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.

~~~
Crito
I can see how 0xCAFEBABE might cause issues in the modern tech community, but
0xDEADBEEF? Do they just hate hexspeak in general?

~~~
gaius
Vegans.

I'll wager someone out there, perhaps unwittingly, has 0xDEADBABE in their
binary, God help them if the twitterati finds out.

~~~
duggan
>> 0xDEADBABE ("Dead Babe") is used by IBM Jikes RVM as a sanity check of the
stack of the primary thread

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexspeak#cite_note-13](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexspeak#cite_note-13)

------
nbm
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.)

------
sdegutis
> _GTFO is crass and doesn 't belong in internet standards._

Agreed, although I got the impression the internet just stopped caring?

~~~
varikin
The internet stopped caring when we stopped caring. We need to care.

~~~
mcantelon
Think of the children!

------
rtpg
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.

~~~
humanrebar
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).

------
lowboy
Good move.

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](https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=tits+or+GTFO)

[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tits-or-
gtfo](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tits-or-gtfo)

~~~
pc86
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.

------
ville
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.

~~~
Symmetry
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.

~~~
Crito
Maybe I should submitting a pull request to change "kill" to "signal".

------
fsiefken
Much better, it's also in line with the age old SSH error message: 'you don't
exist. go away'

------
BSeward
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

[1]
[http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/Log.html...](http://developer.android.com/reference/android/util/Log.html#wtf\(java.lang.String,%20java.lang.Throwable\))

------
fleitz
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.

------
DanBC
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.

------
JackpotDen
Why don't you go away to a more conservative field?

------
polskibus
I'm surprised it took so long.

------
taybin
Good. Glad to see this change.

~~~
taybin
Thanks for the downvotes! You guys make HN the shining city on the hill of the
internet!

