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A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

lkml.iu.edu

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Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#281

Post by arkh »

tertius wrote: post #221
toomuchtodo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because high quality kernel code is more important than not alienating contributors. If someone prefers softer conduct, they are free to fork the kernel and start their own efforts.

> If someone prefers softer conduct The big issue I see people reacting to is profanity. You can be as hard on someone, given the nature of the infraction, without using profane language or denigrating someone. If they don't comply, threaten exactly what Linus threatened, no more commits will be accepted. While I don't disagree with Linus' right to speak as he does. He can be just as effective without the type of lan…

In my culture we use what you'd call profanity as punctuation marks.

I feel it is imperialist for people from one culture to want people from other cultures to adhere to their way of communicating.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#282

Post by emodendroket »

magnetic wrote: post #238
emodendroket wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, sometimes, but the Windows philosophy is probably to introduce a shim so that an app relying on the broken functionality still works.

If you can afford to do that, it's nice to do it indeed. It can get messy and hairy quite quickly though. It seems to me a lot of it boils down to "who gets impacted". If I have a bug in my kernel and a lot of apps are somehow relying on it, I need to be mindful of that and perhaps swallow the purity of the contract in order to provide a pragmatic fix.

Sure, it's not a strategy without costs and Microsoft goes to an extreme. But there's probably a middle way in there; if you're aware that tons of programs now depend on the buggy behavior you probably want to deal with it. But if you're working on Windows or the Linux kernel the tolerance for breaks is probably much lower.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#283

Post by zimpenfish »

forapurpose wrote: post #270
zimpenfish wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlation, however, is not causation. You can't say that Linux is wildly successful because Linus behaves as he does.

It's not even correlation. Correlation is: (if A then B) AND (if not A then not B) Every day, the rooster crows and the sun rises; that's not correlation. Periodically, Linus vocalizes in this way and Linux releases.

> (if A then B)

That's causation, surely.

> Every day, the rooster crows and the sun rises; that's not correlation.

Why not? That's literally (if A then B) according to your definition.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#284

Post by ForHackernews »

alien_at_work wrote: post #272
ForHackernews wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you ever work for a real company with real deadlines you'll get a lot worse than what he gave. I think you must have worked for some horribly unprofessional companies. I've worked places with tight deadlines before, but berating your colleagues or employees with profanity is just ridiculous. I would walk out on the spot if anyone spoke to me the way Linus did in that email.

>I think you must have worked for some horribly unprofessional companies. I have for sure, but the worst of those companies was better than fortune 5 (if I said exactly, you'd know which company), so while primitive they obviously manage to get results that coddling hasn't. EDIT: And as for walking out, if I were your manager and you broke customer systems and made excuses for 3 weeks about it I wouldn't be yelling a…

Firing somebody for lousy performance & making excuses is an entirely correct and professional response. Berating and profanely insulting them is not.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#285

Post by toomuchtodo »

forapurpose wrote: post #275
toomuchtodo wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because high quality kernel code is more important than not alienating contributors. If someone prefers softer conduct, they are free to fork the kernel and start their own efforts.

> high quality kernel code is more important than not alienating contributors That's not the choice; there are other, more effective ways to produce quality code; they are well known and well tested. I would expect that Linux loses more quality code, from contributors who have better things to do than deal with unprofessional behavior, than it gains.

> I would expect that Linux loses more quality code, from contributors who have better things to do than deal with unprofessional behavior, than it gains.

The evidence doesn't bear that out. I would expect more contributions from experienced developers who don't care about the words used in kernel mailing list discussions.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#286

Post by soundwave106 »

pdkl95 wrote: post #266
jordigh wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> John Johansen will survive. We really need to stop excusing Linus's behaviour. Just because we may happen to agree with what he is saying doesn't mean we also have to agree with how he is saying it.

What behavior? Linus's comments were carefully directed at the bad behavior that needed to be fixed. I don't see any personal attacks. Linus is a manager, and part of being a manager includes putting your foot down when someone is causing problems. Ideally, the situation should be handled directly and unambiguously ("The thing you're doing is incorrect and causing problems. Stop doing that.") before the problems beco…

"Seriously, it's the kind of garbage that makes me think your opinion and your code cannot be relied on" is, quite bluntly, a personal attack, directly commenting on an entire developer's code history and knowledge based on one single issue. This could be worded a lot better. The profanity is also unnecessary.

The rule of thumb I've seen in your typical management oriented business books ( eg, your books / training like Crucial Conversations: https://www.vitalsmarts.com/crucial-conversations-training/ ) is to be "persuasive, not abrasive" as that site says. The issue with being abrasive is that one way people might react is by instinctively attacking back -- no matter how technically correct you are, f-bombs and personal attacks might tempt others to throw counterpoint f-bombs and personal attacks back. Another is that repeated behavior along these lines might drive away some people who would rather not see profanity and anger in their mailbox.

Everyone loses their temper occasionally, and John Johansen reacted in the way you should to someone who loses their temper.

Unfortunately, the Linux community as a whole has a reputation in some circles for being overly "hostile" and "toxic". Linus himself has this reputation. How much this reputation dents Linux contribution and usage isn't known, but I doubt anyone can say that this is a positive.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#287

Post by sepeth »

dawnbreez wrote: post #210
sepeth wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Really? Ask that to a child beaten up by their parents in the street. I am sure that child won't make the same mistake again. I am not interested about if Linus is right or wrong, many other people have done that already. I am more interested the way that he speaks. I am gonna go ahead and say it. The way he speaks in this email is ugly, wrong, and should never be encouraged. The language we use is important, ev…

Equating this email to a parent beating their child is a false equivalency. Firstly, because Linus has not physically attacked the developer, and secondly, because the developer--unlike the child--should know better. This is more like Gordon Ramsay going off on a chef who has just told a customer off for not liking his burnt toast.

I agree with the first part, but not with the second part. I believe equating John's behaviour to a chef who has told a customer off is just as distant as mine.

If I was looking exact equivalent, I would just send the same link to the same email.

I am using empathy here. I don't know you guys, you may feel ok if you get shouted when you do wrong when contributing to a project, but I would feel bad, and as a human, I don't think my feelings are not important. If it is coming from an important person like Linus Torvalds, this would hurt even more, and really I don't see anything disrespectful to anyone in John's email.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#288

Post by notyourday »

jordigh wrote: post #152
bjourne wrote: post #42

John Johansen will survive. Linus has made it incredibly damn clear what "no user space regressions ever" mean. See f.e the similar rant from 2012: https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75 And it is his kernel so it is his rules. John Johansen admitted he messed up ( http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1710.3/02539.html ) and promised to handle things better in the future so all is well.

> John Johansen will survive. We really need to stop excusing Linus's behaviour. Just because we may happen to agree with what he is saying doesn't mean we also have to agree with how he is saying it.

> We really need to stop excusing Linus's behaviour. Just because we may happen to agree with what he is saying doesn't mean we also have to agree with how he is saying it.

We need more behavior like this. The reason why the modern software tend to be a pile of garbage is because it is managed like popularity contest of the project managers instead of people who want to get shit done.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#289

Post by acobster »

acobster wrote: post #62
jordigh wrote: post #4

Mercurial, made by another (in my opinion) much more well-spoken kernel hacker, is what really introduced me to the concept that you do not break interface for downstream users, no matter how wrongly you may think they are using the interface. It’s an attitude that is difficult to convey because software developers always want to have the freedom to “improve” their own software, even at the possible cost of breaking…

Minor point, but he puts Python in with software that "almost never breaks" on update. Really? Am I missing something? Maybe he just hasn't tried running Python 3 yet...

Can't edit orig comment...yes I misunderstood the point about explicit breaking changes. I recently watched Rich Hickey's "spec-ulation" talk referenced elsewhere in this thread, which takes an extreme view (tl;dr SemVer sucks and we shouldn't have breaking changes ever), so that's where my mind was. Thanks for the clarity, all.

Re: A regression is the kernel not giving the same result with the same user space

#290

Post by notyourday »

soundwave106 wrote: post #286
pdkl95 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What behavior? Linus's comments were carefully directed at the bad behavior that needed to be fixed. I don't see any personal attacks. Linus is a manager, and part of being a manager includes putting your foot down when someone is causing problems. Ideally, the situation should be handled directly and unambiguously ("The thing you're doing is incorrect and causing problems. Stop doing that.") before the problems beco…

"Seriously, it's the kind of garbage that makes me think your opinion and your code cannot be relied on" is, quite bluntly, a personal attack, directly commenting on an entire developer's code history and knowledge based on one single issue. This could be worded a lot better. The profanity is also unnecessary. The rule of thumb I've seen in your typical management oriented business books ( eg, your books / training l…

> Unfortunately, the Linux community as a whole has a reputation in some circles for being overly "hostile" and "toxic". Linus himself has this reputation. How much this reputation dents Linux contribution and usage isn't known, but I doubt anyone can say that this is a positive.

Except that it is still being used unlike the other "nice" projects. BeOS. For example.

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