Thought crimes and profanities whilst programming
Juho Leinonen, Arto Hellas · 2017
Where should we draw the line of inappropriate conduct on a course that is given freely to anyone? If an individual starts profusely swearing on a lecture, they are most likely expelled from the class or even from the course. But what if they do it outside the lecture amongst their classmates, amongst a group of anonymous individuals - or by themselves? In this article, we study how students use profanities in source code when they are completing programming assignments on a massive open online course (MOOC). We examine how common it is to curse in source code as well as whether specific assignments incite more cursing than others. Additionally, we investigate differences between participants with regards to cursing. Our results indicate that a considerable amount of participants write curse words whilst programming, but most clean their code for the final submission. The data also shows that there are different degrees of profanity in use, ranging from quite inoffensive words to offensive racial slurs. Finally, we discuss options that one may take when individuals who swear are identified, starting from rescinding their right to study.