Something Positive
Today’s comic marks the very first time I have had one of my characters use profanity. In its 17 years of online publication, this is a milestone – but not one I had intended. I’m no prude, but I’ve always viewed profanity as method to elicit a cheap laugh.
So, I deliberated over the punchline, initially using something less vulgar: “crappy”. But it didn’t sit well with me (pun not intended.)
I changed it to “shitty” because it just works. And it feels justified, because this is how the developers I know actually speak.
-Krishna
These beautiful and intelligent people wrote
Tell me what you think!
coius
May 13, 2015 at 6:02 amIt works well because it’s raw and really emphasizes a point. It is really bad code. I worked in IT for several years. When something was bad, I mead god-awful bad, we never sugar coated it to each other (managers yes, but not colleagues). Sometimes the most controversial messages are the ones that get the point across.
Think of cussing as an extension of the language to express feeling and emotion. The more raw the language gets, the worse the emphasis. Days aren’t just bad. Sometimes they go beyond that. Having a “Shitty” day when you normally say “I’ve had a bad day” can put emphasis that today was not like the rest of the bad days. It’s short for “This is absolutely the WORST day of my life”. Emphasis can be used, or misused, but I applaud your use. It really does emphasis more than that he sucks at writing code. He is probably the worst code writer Bob has seen. Thus the use of the vulgarity. It’s really shitty… So bad it had to be called that. Also, in IT I don’t think I have worked in many places (mostly IT/Server/etc..) where something goes wrong in a cubicle and I have not hear the “F” word yelled right when something went down the drain. I can sometimes hear it 1-3x a year right before, well… crap hits the fan. A messed up project beyond hope, something that involves hundreds of hours fixing something, etc… It’s usually reserved for one of those “Oh man, here comes the mandatory overtime…” moments…
Matt
May 13, 2015 at 11:11 amWell, it made me laugh!
Krishna
May 14, 2015 at 8:52 pmExcellent! :)