[Haskell-cafe] Re: Haskell Weekly News: Issue 140 - November 22, 2009

[Benjamin L.Russell]

On Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:58:30 +0000, Conor McBride
<conor at strictlypositive.org> wrote:

>Hi Benjamin
>
>On 24 Nov 2009, at 02:35, Benjamin L.Russell wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:14:29 -0800 (PST), jfredett at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>>  Typef*ck: Brainf*ck in the type system. Johnny Morrice [23]showed us
>>>  his implementation of everyone's favorite profane programming
>>>  language... in the type system.
>
>> In general, if a programming language-related term contains what is
>> generally regarded as a profane word as a component, for what kinds of
>> written material should I prioritize accuracy vs. propriety?
>
>Who gives a brain?
>
>More seriously, I worry that inaccuracy (other than blessed relief from
>tedious pedantry, of course) might ever be improper. Lots of arts
>academia write learned articles about filth, and it's no big deal when
>it's in quotation. That's the situation here, no? Perhaps use quotation
>marks just to be clear that the terminology is not of your making. But
>you should have no need of ASCII-art fig leaves.

Agreed.  Inaccuracy in the title can potentially lead to
cross-referencing difficulties if a search is performed.  As long as
the title is in quotation, it would seem that accuracy should probably
be prioritized over the political incorrectness of portions of the
title, so that someone who wishes, say, to perform a search need not
search for both versions of the title.

>(Now, as far as *email* (e.g., HWN) is concerned, it makes sense to act
>like wise spammers the world over and disguise your true intentions from
>the automated filters. People from Scunthorpe must be really fed up  
>doing
>that. I know they're fed up being used as an example, too. Sorry.)

Hmm.  That's a potential dilemma.  If someone were, say, a functional
programming researcher and wanted to look up related discussions in
archived mailing lists and newsgroups on a term that included a
politically incorrect subterm within, then it would then be necessary
to perform a search on all the following variants (taking "Monadam*"
(with the asterisk replaced by the the correct letter) as an example):

1) the uncensored version
2) Monadam*
3) Monada**
4) Monad***
5) Mona****

Wow.  Unfortunately, the automated filtering software is likely to
mark a message of an uncensored title as spam.  Maybe the mailing
lists and newsgroups have no choice but to be left out of any related
searches in order to escape the filters?

-- Benjamin L. Russell
-- 
Benjamin L. Russell  /   DekuDekuplex at Yahoo dot com
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