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dt β€” We Give a F*** How the Site Loads
Published: 2013-08-12 15:24:00 +0000 UTC; Views: 117486; Favourites: 41; Downloads: 0
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Description body div#devskin1262065 .gr-body { background:#FFFFFF; font:10pt/1.4em Verdana; border-bottom:1px solid #A6B2A6; } body div#devskin1262065 i.gb { display:none; } body div#devskin1262065 a { text-decoration:none; color:#2f779e; } body div#devskin1262065 a:hover { text-decoration:underline; } body div#devskin1262065 img { max-width:100%; } body div#devskin1262065 strong { font:bold 15px/normal Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; color:#404040; margin:0 0 -10px; display:block; } body div#devskin1262065 p { max-width:800px; width:auto!important; width:800px; margin:0; } body div#devskin1262065 code { font:normal 11px/20px Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; color:#1b3c59; background:#f2f6ff; border:1px solid #ccddff; display:block; padding:6px 0 20px 10px; border-radius:3px; -moz-border-radius:3px; -webkit-border-radius:3px; margin:5px 0px 5px 0px; } body div#devskin1262065 div.positions { text-align:center; background:#0F3B6A; border-radius:4px; -moz-border-radius:4px; -webkit-border-radius:4px; padding:0 10px 1.3em 10px; margin:0 20px; } body div#devskin1262065 div.positions a { text-decoration:none; color:white; } body div#devskin1262065 div.positions a:hover { text-decoration:underline; }

Developers can be angry people sometimes. This is actually quite the understatement and dt is no exception to that assessment. With web development in particular, there are several moments during the day where we are astounded, perplexed, and irritated by why something works the way it does--often over things beyond our control like lack of uniform web standards. Abe Stanway, the creator of Commit Logs from Last Night, actually gives a pretty compelling, and serious, Ignite talk on the functionality of profanity for developers here:



(It has several cool histograms and visualizations of how developers use profanity and which languages it's most prevalent in--surprise ending: Javascript generates the most profanity)

Last week, we received a very interesting, if not amusing, bug report:

"I just wanted to let you know that the reason why deviantART's CSS isn't loading properly for some people is because one of your CSS files has f*** in a stylesheet comment."
That's right. The almighty F-word was breaking how some stylesheets were loading for deviants who were accessing the site from computers with overly sensitive system-wide profanity filters installed. These users' browsers likely stopped parsing the stylesheet entirely upon reaching the word in the stylesheet, leading to a fairly ugly and/or broken page.



The irony here is that we didn't have to do anything to fix this bug (well, we did have to rename an image file that had a vulgar name!).

Why didn't we have to do anything?

Last week, we made a pretty big switch in how we build stylesheets on deviantART. We started using LESS with the CSS rollup files that we build (deviantART has hundreds of stylesheets--we combine these into single rollup files to reduce the number of requests your browser has to make). Β One of the outcomes of this switch was that we no longer serve stylesheets with developer comments left in.

Oops. We're sorry, everyone. We can't promise we'll never swear again. But we can promise if you're browsing deviantART at the public library, our swearing won't stop you from using the site.


Like the idea of working on stuff like this? Check out the open developer positions at deviantART.

Related content
Comments: 96

Chirone-of-Chiron [2013-08-14 02:25:42 +0000 UTC]

"Javascript generates the most profanity"

well.... Java generates a higher percentage of profanity showing how people hate it

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

fartprincess In reply to Chirone-of-Chiron [2013-08-14 04:17:36 +0000 UTC]

Ha, true, but that's about as obvious of a fact as saying COBOL makes people want to kill themselves

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

REA002 In reply to fartprincess [2013-08-14 05:40:56 +0000 UTC]

And Assembly programmers get shoved in a dark, damp basement for the rest of their careers, which pretty much sums up their mental state.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

rehael In reply to REA002 [2013-08-14 20:16:45 +0000 UTC]

Ouch, if asm ends there, I don't want to know where Brainfsck programmers end…

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 2

REA002 In reply to rehael [2013-08-23 01:45:21 +0000 UTC]

Sumerian rape dungeon.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

rohitdib In reply to rehael [2013-08-14 21:19:57 +0000 UTC]

Brain file system check?

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

rehael In reply to rohitdib [2013-08-16 00:04:42 +0000 UTC]

wikipedia: Brainfuck

Next step is Dis , then Malbolge , and then you abandon all hope…

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

pkollitsch [2013-08-14 02:15:55 +0000 UTC]

That's a reason to use some build tools and minify css for production loosing all comments (if not needed for hacks) in the process.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

taklecker [2013-08-14 00:59:47 +0000 UTC]

Reminds me of the stories I heard about how some auto workers in the 70s. or maybe the 60s, allegedly wrote graffiti on the inside of body and door panels of cars under assembly.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

DeviBrigard [2013-08-13 23:42:47 +0000 UTC]

I suppose its good that most of my code comments tend to be about muffins or fish...


because I'm weird like that.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

joffalicious In reply to DeviBrigard [2013-08-14 00:43:30 +0000 UTC]

fish muffins?

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

DeviBrigard In reply to joffalicious [2013-08-15 06:47:43 +0000 UTC]

No thanks

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

coloradosastrugi In reply to ??? [2013-08-13 23:41:40 +0000 UTC]

Ouch! Β I've never built a site that didn't have a separate "cr*p-browsers.css" style sheet for IE. Β I suppose the good news that some IE users got the un-styledΒ garbage I wanted them to suffer with, but I thought I was being noble and kind and accommodatingΒ their disability. Β  Β 

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

fineartbyandrewdavid In reply to ??? [2013-08-13 23:12:47 +0000 UTC]

so if we use swear words in our journals,and we happen to be using a nice journal template that contains CSS then it won't load properly

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

fartprincess In reply to fineartbyandrewdavid [2013-08-13 23:53:55 +0000 UTC]

Well, if you had profanity in your journal and someone with one of these filters installed tried to visit it, they'd have a hard time doing so regardless of what kind of template your journal had. This was a very extreme case that was reported to us. Most web filters are not *that* sensitive

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

fineartbyandrewdavid In reply to fartprincess [2013-08-13 23:59:28 +0000 UTC]

i rarely use swear words unless something bad has happened or gone wrong

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

joffalicious In reply to fineartbyandrewdavid [2013-08-14 00:44:13 +0000 UTC]

nice caveat. so in other words "rarely" is subjective?

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

fineartbyandrewdavid In reply to joffalicious [2013-08-14 01:08:56 +0000 UTC]

i used to be very stressful and what one would call a bit of a bull in a china shop when i was younger my vocabulary was mainly swear words but then i later on i fell in love with some one beautiful who changed my whole perspective on life sadly after being together for 25 years i lost her in february of this year to breast cancer

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yaclive In reply to fineartbyandrewdavid [2013-08-14 04:51:21 +0000 UTC]

thx for the life story

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

namenotrequired In reply to ??? [2013-08-13 22:36:06 +0000 UTC]

More comments hereΒ news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6…

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

MamaLantiis [2013-08-13 21:37:33 +0000 UTC]

Bahahaha! Where I work, we rename files "-sh*t" instead of the f-bomb, but we sure do drop the f-bomb verbally in the office a lot

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

BeholdThePowerOfNod [2013-08-13 19:59:51 +0000 UTC]

You know, I never even noticed

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

catluvr2 [2013-08-13 19:51:12 +0000 UTC]

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

KnightAR [2013-08-13 19:45:54 +0000 UTC]

Woo, I know we've talked about switching to LESS. I'm glad it actually happened and I'm really interested in hearing how much CSS duplication was removed due to it

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 2

Hormesis In reply to KnightAR [2013-11-11 12:57:07 +0000 UTC]

s/CSS duplication/developer typing


Since using LESS at our work, the actual amount of CSS that the browser has to (unnecessarily) parse seems to have grown quite a bit.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

shadowhand In reply to KnightAR [2013-08-13 21:54:36 +0000 UTC]

not a lot yet... it is a slow transition. but $mudimba has made significant progress with transitioning deviantART muro's CSS over, as an example for the rest of #dt .

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

KnightAR In reply to shadowhand [2013-08-18 23:34:35 +0000 UTC]

Awesome $mudimba does great work

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

mudimba In reply to KnightAR [2013-08-19 19:21:16 +0000 UTC]

Aw shucks, thanks `KnightAR

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

KnightAR In reply to mudimba [2013-08-22 20:37:09 +0000 UTC]

Hey, I'm only speaking the truth!

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

Krissi001 In reply to ??? [2013-08-13 19:42:45 +0000 UTC]

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

Pickley [2013-08-13 19:41:41 +0000 UTC]

Ah... comments laced with profanity... I have too many of those.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

Chirone-of-Chiron In reply to Pickley [2013-08-14 02:24:35 +0000 UTC]

Hey Aaron! Fancy seeing you here (it's me, Hayden)

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

Pickley In reply to Chirone-of-Chiron [2013-08-14 04:01:09 +0000 UTC]

You too. dA is what I create apps for in my free time... .

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

vesner [2013-08-13 19:33:27 +0000 UTC]

Oh, if only my clients saw the file names of works I've made for them...

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

icefire8521 In reply to vesner [2013-08-14 04:29:45 +0000 UTC]

...I would like to know what you've name your files.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

namenotrequired In reply to ??? [2013-08-13 19:08:58 +0000 UTC]

so it was gonna be fixed by accident anyway!

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

miontre In reply to ??? [2013-08-13 19:07:34 +0000 UTC]

So this is why the site never loaded properly at my old school!


You know, I don't think that's the only case, I've seen other profanities in there involving IE too

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

mudimba In reply to miontre [2013-08-13 22:15:19 +0000 UTC]

Developers cursing at IE?!?! Β I'm sure that has never happened! Β :-P

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

miontre In reply to mudimba [2013-08-13 22:16:42 +0000 UTC]

Oh of course!Β  Β 

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

KovoWolf [2013-08-13 18:56:56 +0000 UTC]

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

Farand [2013-08-13 18:54:38 +0000 UTC]

'The position you are looking for could not be found, or is no longer available.'


That went quickly.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

fartprincess In reply to Farand [2013-08-13 19:06:43 +0000 UTC]

The link was out of date, thanks for pointing that out

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 1

Farand In reply to fartprincess [2013-08-13 19:14:27 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

Ikue In reply to ??? [2013-08-13 18:49:53 +0000 UTC]

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0

Farand In reply to ??? [2013-08-13 18:48:56 +0000 UTC]

Good; I don't want to offend Mrs. Thomas. She's the world's nicest librarian.

πŸ‘: 0 ⏩: 0


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