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Comment by mhurron | Hacker News Reader

I find it funny an article on swearing is going to be discussed on a site where the general users will deride you and hold you as unprofessional for swearing on it.

Perhaps we should have an article on the healing power of humour next.

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>general users will deride you and hold you as unprofessional for swearing on it.

The fuck is up with that bullshit anyway?

Not all therapeutic things are fit for use in technical discussion :)

We could test the bullshit assumption right here.

Well this comment wasn't down-voted, so it IS possible to swear. (When appropriate of course)

I've never seen anyone derided for tossing in the occasional expletive when describing extreme frustration, anger, joy, or other strong emotional reaction.

I think it's more just generally "dumb" and thoughtless swearing (or insulting/degrading comments directed at another commenter) that are frowned upon.

There's a time and a place for everything. I may not respond to you if you say, "Hey, hand me that fucking thing right there." instead of, "Hey, hand me that RS-232 cable." I simply don't have time or the give a crap to try and translate.

This is not an extreme example. It happens.

Time and place is key. Swearing is just another tool to express an emotion. A bug report comes in and you find and fix it in 5 minutes, "Hey I fixed that bug, fix is going out." A different bug report comes in that you stay up 24 hours finding and fixing, "Motherfucker! I finally found and fixed that issue that was fucking with our payment system. Have I mentioned that programming is fucking horse shit? I'm going to sleep now."

While HN is publicly searchable I don't imagine many people will swear. It's not only the users here that could read them; it's anyone who Googles your username.

That would be true if the words "fuck" and "shit" were not considered swear words :).

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