I don't want to sound like a spoil-sport, but I personally find glib messages and comments to be a major waste of time. People who are not familiar with the particular flavor of idiom used (American or British or French or whatever) often hit these messages with a surprising amount of disorientation and confusion.

(I'm not casting the same ill sentiments on well-hidden "easter eggs", but on the bulk of the application itself. Easter eggs are fun if kept out of the beaten path.)

Messages should use consistent terminology, backed by any documentation. Grammar should be simple and easy for the unfamiliar to understand. Use of group or cultural idioms should be minimized. Plays on words require explanations or are ignored with a shrug.

Visual puns are annoying as well. A button on an IDE has a pine tree. A related button has a pine tree and a saw. You're supposed to realize that these mean, "Save the environment" and "Manage the environment." More than one game has been clever with an animal's footprint to "paws" the action. Try to translate that to Italian or Japanese.

One IRC-related Perl module I've used has tons of useless IRC chat transcripts, witticisms and "inside jokes." All junk. At least the actual diagnostics and logic were fairly clean.

A more extreme example I saw was a chemistry suite in FORTRAN where in the margin columns 73-131 of each "card" or source code line was written a fantasy story inspired by Lord of the Rings. Users had to remember that CASTLE.EXE did this and DRAGON.EXE did that. Of course, fixing or reorganizing broken logic meant tearing the tapestry of the story, and so many bugs were left alone in deference to the irrelevant artistry.

While I hope that developers have fun doing what they do for a living, I also hope they show respect for their users and maintainers.

--
[ e d @ h a l l e y . c c ]

In reply to Re: Funny Messages in OSS by halley
in thread Funny Messages in OSS by Anonymous Monk

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