Top all-time · #861
Vidar Holen
Personal blog · vidarholen.net/contents/blogprogrammingsystems
Vidar Holen writes Vidar's Index, a personal blog at vidarholen.net about programming and systems. Since 2009, 76 different Hacker News readers have linked it 107 times, most often “Linux kernel swear counts per version”. No feed was found, so read it on the site itself.
Rarely recommended · 5 of 36 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Vidar Holen's blog for the Linux kernel swear-word counts, shell pitfalls such as dd and swap files, and benchmarks, mostly as sources or pointers in threads on shell and Linux.
- Recommended for · 5 comments
- Called interesting; a resource on shell corner cases; swear-count graphs worth checking out; profanity counting a favourite pastime.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 36 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Linux kernel swear counts per version14 people · 14 mentions · first linked 2009-01-14
- Occurences of words in the Linux kernel source code6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2018-05-23
- Tricking the tricksters with a next level fork bomb5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-06-10
- Overwriting Hard Drive Data: The Great Wiping Controversy (2008) [pdf]4 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2015-12-01
- Useless Use of "dd" (2015)4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2019-01-08
- Finitecurve.com: TSP art on a CPU budget4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-10-18
- A shell script that deleted a database, and how ShellCheck could have helped3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-03-27
- What was the point of [ “x$var” = “xval” ]?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-04-12
- An Empirical Investigation into Programming Language Syntax (PDF, 2013)3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2019-09-15
- Swap on HDD: Does placement matter?2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2021-09-07
What Hacker News says?
Sorry, here you go. http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/
Comment linking /contents/wordcount/
on “Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public”Submitted Zsh and Fish’s simple but clever trick for highlighting missing linefeeds as a story · 474 points
HN discussionYeah, but then again I love occasionally coming across the rant of some angry dev in source comments (see http://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/ for an analysis of profanity in the linux kernel source). Compare that with the source of Win2k ( http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/15/71552/7795 ) where there were apparently "a dozen or so "fucks" and "shits", and hundreds of "craps"." It seems greater stability…
Comment linking /contents/wordcount/
on “"Asswipe," replied Yahoo's server. That's when I knew I had it”Submitted “Dynamic programming” is not referring to “computer programming” as a story · 422 points
HN discussionI don't like framing this debate in the prism of government versus private company policing. Freedom of speech is not mutually exclusive to the government. Consider a programming club meeting once a week that is open to the public. You get there and it's 6 dudes and they are accepting of you as a coder but completely at odds with you on the social justice spectrum (using words like "gay" and "retard" as examples). Y…
Comment linking /contents/wordcount/
on “GitHub threatens to shut down a repository for using the word 'retard'”Submitted What was the point of [ “x$var” = “xval” ]? as a story · 414 points
HN discussionNot so new age... but in IRC, the evalbot in #bash, did use something similar with QEMU: > Initially, Qemu is booted and its state is saved. On each evaluated command, this state is loaded (giving a usable shell in less than one second), a command is fed on stdin and the output read on stdout. https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/evalbot/
Comment linking /contents/evalbot/
on “We clone a running VM in 2 seconds”Submitted Useless Use of "dd" (2015) as a story · 395 points
HN discussionThis shape filling curve method probably isn't what you're thinking of either, but it's neat and similar to the OP linked paper in 2D: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25905534 & https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/blog/?p=1062
Comment linking /contents/blog/?p=1062
on “Repulsive Curves”Submitted I wasted weeks hand optimizing assembly because I benchmarked on random data as a story · 391 points
HN discussionSome related resources, for intermediate shell users already familiar with shellcheck and looking to dig deeper into the history underlying obscure corner cases, include the developer Vidar's blog (@ https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/blog/ ), the blog of the Oil-Shell developer (@ https://www.oilshell.org/blog/ ), and Greg's Wiki (@ https://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls ).
Comment linking /contents/blog/
on “ShellCheck: Finds bugs in your shell scripts”Submitted Dd is not a disk writing tool (2015) as a story · 359 points
HN discussionI stand corrected, thanks for the link, from that one I followed this link which is even more interesting as it explains the process of creating that snippet: https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/blog/?p=766
Comment linking /contents/blog/?p=766
on “Tell HN: Consider listing your contact details”Submitted Lessons learned from writing ShellCheck as a story · 307 points
HN discussionUnfortunate that we (as a collective --- not something I personally believe in) seem to think that that is being "professional", and that it is somehow a reason to make everything as bland and soulless as possible, and that that is somehow better? I agree that a lot of code has lost its "character", so to speak. The Linux kernel still retains much of its fucks and shits, and apparently has gained a whole lot of crap…
Comment linking /contents/wordcount/
on “Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available”Submitted An ode to pack: gzip’s forgotten decompressor as a story · 200 points
HN discussionWhen did I mentioned one should always point to https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/blog/?p=479 For like >99% of cases where people used dd they would have been better of using a different tool.
Comment linking /contents/blog/?p=479
on “Hidden gems of moreutils”Submitted Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time as a story · 178 points
HN discussionI remember this coming up in a blog post by the creator of Shellcheck a while back [0] and being discussed here [1]. One reason given is this: > Assuming the OSS projects aren't a conflict of interest Apple is so secretive even internally that you can never guarantee whatever you're working on in your free time does not conflict what someone at Apple is working on secretly. [0]: https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/b…
Comment linking /contents/blog/?p=859
on “Apple Open Source”Submitted [ -z $var ] works unreasonably well as a story · 169 points
HN discussionmaybe the inspiration for https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/rage/ =P
Comment linking /contents/rage/
on “Microsoft Comic Chat”Submitted Echo/printf to write images in 5 LoC with zero libraries or headersnetpbm as a story · 129 points
HN discussion< https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#fuck*,shit*,d... > linus says gay rights, I guess
Comment linking /contents/wordcount/
on “Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time”Submitted Swap on HDD: Does placement matter? as a story · 92 points
HN discussionIt's actually because someone with "crap" as a substring of their e-mail address made a bunch of contributions with their e-mail address in it (e.g. in maintainer records and copyright notices) around that time. Nothing to do with COVID-19. See the graph with the entire domain for comparison: https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#crapouillou
Comment linking /contents/wordcount/
on “Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time”Submitted What was the point of [ "x$var" = "xval" ]? (2021) as a story · 82 points
HN discussionTrying adding "ass", it explodes [1]. Not sure if that's because of keywords such as 'class' or something else? "dumb" is really on the uptake [2]. [1] https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#fuck*,shit*,d... * [2] https://www.vidarholen.net/contents/wordcount/#fuck*,shit*,d... *
Comment linking /contents/wordcount/
on “Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time”Submitted Linux kernel swear counts as a story · 65 points
HN discussionYou can check company names too ! It's interesting to see that by default, the graph shows google,apple. But adding meta, and IBM really changes the plot. Meta went from 2K to 10K+ from 2018 to 2025. While IBM seems to have stopped contributing in 2008. Since they the merging with RedHat, I would have expected to see them increase again but none of RedHat / IBM seems to have increase. https://www.vidarholen.net/cont…
Comment linking /contents/wordcount/
on “Occurences of swearing in the Linux kernel source code over time”Submitted Linux kernel swear counts per version as a story · 55 points
HN discussion
