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by greenkey 2017 days ago
I’m not a fan of everything Bukowski wrote, but I wouldn’t try to censor him so that little Jimmy could read it, and I liked the movie Barfly.

Similarly, I’m not a fan of everything Linus wrote, but I wouldn’t enforce bad CS101 code on him so that little Jimmy could read it, and I like Linux.

1 comments

Who is little Jimmy?
Jimmy is a diminutive form of James. It's the sort of thing where parents would call a kid "jimmy" and when they grow up they will ask people to call them "Jim" or "James."

Adding "little" in front just stresses the fact that we are talking about a kid, so the references are about dumbing it down for kids.

Johnny is probably a bit more common than Jimmy, but I've seen both. See e.g. [1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Johnny_Can%27t_Read

The poster-child for the movie "Think of the Children!"
It refers to an old American comicstrip with a little kid that didn’t know much. (I think anyways)

It just sort of means any below-average person.