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Abuse is indefensible

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Re: Abuse is indefensible

#81

Post by ekianjo »

> I consider this kind of abuse indefensible. Nonetheless, I’ve seen multiple people defending and even celebrating it.

And so what? You have never seen bullies in School ? Are you going to go in the streets and fight for moral righteousness in every corner ? Or are you just picking on Linus because it's an easy target with no controversy ?

It's not like people who work with Linus don't know how he acts and interacts with others. I'd rather have someone who is blunt and direct than someone who smiles to your face and says shit in your back. At least you know where you stand.

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#82

Post by lagadu »

srpablo wrote: post #18
unfamiliar wrote: post #2

I've read a few of Linus' rants and been on the fence, but this one does seem to have crossed some sort of line into being unnecessarily abusive, and to add to that, unclear communication. The rewritten version really does emphasise a much better approach. Linus's rant doesn't read like it was written by... a stable person. I was in full agreement with the article up until this: >Of the many things I could say about…

> Completely irrelevant and not true in my opinion. Hardly, when talking about brash/abusive behavior in the context of an industry where women are underrepresented, I think it's plenty fine to mention that there might be a connection to be made. > the gender of the poster makes no difference Eh, I don't agree. It's well-observed in social sciences that men are given more leeway to be abusive than women are; one exam…

It's shoehorned because it's inserting a completely unrelated assertion despite nothing in the slightest pointing to it at all on the rest of the article.

It would have made just about as much sense if they'd written "This would be entirely different had it been written by a black person". But they just had to make it political and race just isn't a hot enough topic in the tech world so they didn't go for that.

It's a pathetic attention grab that sullies an otherwise valid critique.

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#83

Post by pervycreeper »

srpablo wrote: post #18
unfamiliar wrote: post #2

I've read a few of Linus' rants and been on the fence, but this one does seem to have crossed some sort of line into being unnecessarily abusive, and to add to that, unclear communication. The rewritten version really does emphasise a much better approach. Linus's rant doesn't read like it was written by... a stable person. I was in full agreement with the article up until this: >Of the many things I could say about…

> Completely irrelevant and not true in my opinion. Hardly, when talking about brash/abusive behavior in the context of an industry where women are underrepresented, I think it's plenty fine to mention that there might be a connection to be made. > the gender of the poster makes no difference Eh, I don't agree. It's well-observed in social sciences that men are given more leeway to be abusive than women are; one exam…

>Eh, I don't agree. It's well-observed in social sciences that men are given more leeway to be abusive than women are; one example is how often words like "abrasive" or "bossy" come up in performance reports: http://fortune.com/2014/08/26/performance-review-gender-bias....

Have they ensured that they are using identical behaviors in this comparison?

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#84

Post by x1024 »

tptacek wrote: post #58
x1024 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code being safe or unsafe is a pretty objective metric of quality, methinks.

I agree. Can you explain how this particular code is "safe" or "unsafe"? Again: I'm curious as to how much of what Linus says is taken at face value on HN. I'm even more interested now, because the fulcrum of Linus's argument isn't safety.

You are committing a logical fallacy. I'm not "the voice of HN", nor am I a representative sample of "what HN thinks".

This is just my opinion.

Using a builtin operation ("addition and comparison of integers") is always safer than using a function that may or may not work the same everywhere. I.e. a nonstandard function.

Also, the proposed code has more levels of indirection, therefore places a higher cognitive load on the reader. These things tend to result in bugs down the road.

And it is also true that "an overflow could still happen", which is mentioned in Linus' critique.

All of these are objective ways to measure how "safe" the code is.

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#85

Post by enneff »

nabla9 wrote: post #6

I thought that finally I can see example of Linus being abusive. This was not it. Linus was attacking the work and ideas and cursing them. He was not attacking the person who wrote the code. Cursing is not abusive by itself. Cursing is emotional emphasis. I would not want to work in a environment where strong emotional language used to criticize your work is considered abusive. If conflict over ideas and work does no…

> "Get rid of it. And I don't ever want to see that shit again."

Would you really want to work with someone who speaks to you this way? It's like a caricature of a typical "evil boss". I'm amazed that Linus can take himself seriously writing like this. It's just so unnecessary and overly dramatic, like a child throwing a tantrum.

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#86

Post by sarciszewski »

norea-armozel wrote: post #78
sarciszewski wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Linus doesn't deserve to be in his position. What exactly do you mean by "in his position"? It's his project that he started years ago. His participation is likened to a monarchy, not a democracy. His further involvement is, therefore, not something that can be decided by an election. He doesn't deserve to be in his position with respect to a project he started and owns? That doesn't make any damn sense.

Or maybe since he can't communicate without expletives or being overly coarse he can appoint someone else to the task of explaining the problems with code contributions?

> Or maybe ... he can appoint someone else to the task of explaining the problems with code contributions?

Of course he can, but that doesn't mean he will.

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#87

Post by boost_ »

abuse? offensive? haha, what a first world problem, having my code called “shit” is abuse now.. i wonder what you would say about real world abuse.

just grow a skin, Linus can say and do whatever he wants about his project (linux). don’t like it? don’t help it then.

seriously kids these days get offended by everything..

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#88

Post by toyg »

spacecowboy_lon wrote: post #37
unfamiliar wrote: post #2

I've read a few of Linus' rants and been on the fence, but this one does seem to have crossed some sort of line into being unnecessarily abusive, and to add to that, unclear communication. The rewritten version really does emphasise a much better approach. Linus's rant doesn't read like it was written by... a stable person. I was in full agreement with the article up until this: >Of the many things I could say about…

I have noticed that Nordic non native English people often have very good spoken English but have a poor grasp of the unwritten rules concerning "engineering language"

It's not just Nordics. Non-native speakers tend to see swearwords as funny (aren't they the first thing one learns, after all? Even as a kid!), I'm guilty of that myself.

For English in particular, this is reinforced by abundant film material: the cooler the movie, the highest the chance to have it packed with swearwords, because it makes it sexier for native-speakers. This results in non-natives (who will likely consume this sort of exceptional material but not necessarily the more average stuff) assuming "harsh" language is more acceptable than it might actually be in practice. Some productions' appeal is almost entirely based on swearwords, e.g. In The Loop.

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#89

Post by MacsHeadroom »

nabla9 wrote: post #6

I thought that finally I can see example of Linus being abusive. This was not it. Linus was attacking the work and ideas and cursing them. He was not attacking the person who wrote the code. Cursing is not abusive by itself. Cursing is emotional emphasis. I would not want to work in a environment where strong emotional language used to criticize your work is considered abusive. If conflict over ideas and work does no…

> He was not attacking the person who wrote the code.

"No sane PERSON"

"YOU damn well didn't do the right thing to begin with"

"[YOU are] just incompetent and out to lunch"

"[YOU] are so far out to lunch that it's not even funny"

The lines above would suggest otherwise. (Capital emphasis mine.)

Re: Abuse is indefensible

#90

Post by gpvos »

x1024 wrote: post #11

Funny how the author "will moderate comments" and the only comments left are those who uncritically agree with them.

I see at least two comments that are critical of the author. And even if they were posted after you wrote this, how do you know he has deleted anything at all?
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