some people want to talk about the latter section of the word "tard" being shorthand for "retard" presumably.

So I'll take you up on that, even though I fully disagree that this is the pun the author was making.

I'll start by saying that "to retard" has actual meaning, outside of derogatory statements, slurs or so on. In fact, that meaning predates by many hundreds of years: the description of people in such a way.

Since you could argue that this project is trying to speed up development, it could also argue that this is a commentary on "being retarded from your original objective" of running commands.

So, my first argument is that "to retard" can have meaning outside of being offensive, in fact, that was its primary use.

Now: Retard is a slur, absolutely. But, is it worse than Idiot? Moron?

At some point in time those were clinical definitions to mean the same thing as retard, they became used as slurs and fell out of favour.

Now, ironically, they are less inflammatory than the new derogatory word.

So, my second argument is that being offended by certain language is arbitrary.

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Why am I arguing? Because you assume mal-intent where it's possible there is none. I genuinely assumed "bashtard" = "bastard", and that's "as offensive" to me as "git" (as a living and breathing british bastard), I didn't jump to the conclusion that it was attempting to denigrate low IQ people.

This type of language policing needs to be self-critical, because if you're not willing to be critical on what you're putting out into the world and onto other people: I will be, and you'll hate me for it.