Last week I posted about the variable name that could get someone fired which received a lot of attention in the comments ranging from the world is over reacting to unbridled anger at how this sort of behaviour is still tolerated in society.
If you missed it last week the crux is that someone named a variable inside the code of the game “FeministWhoreâ€.
At the time Techland apologised and I was worried that the developer responsible would be losing his job over something that should never have been made public.
At the time I felt it was just a bad taste joke that we didn’t know the connotation behind and that we shouldn’t make a big deal out of it as it was never meant to be seen by anyone outside of the development team.
However others felt it was completely uncalled for and anyone working for them who used language like that in code would be dismissed on the spot
Thankfully Techland appears to be a more lenient company than yours and has confirmed that the developer is still with them but has been disciplined accordingly.
It was an inside joke and while all references to it were scrubbed before release this one in a debug file was missed.
It’s not that the one file was missed that’s important here but rather that the team was aware of the name and allowed it to exist which means any punishment handed down should apply to the whole department and no single developer.
I’m sticking to the fact that code is a private arena (within the development team) and while I may disagree with their humour it’s not my place to tell them how to act in their private company.
Glad to hear the guy/girl wasn’t fired though.
Source: VG247
Last Updated: September 13, 2011
