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Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

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Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#21

Post by daveFNbuck »

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> So commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself. Why commit messages rather than code comments?

A commit message can give you a better understanding of why a line of code is the way it is. It's like a mini README for your commit.

Suppose you're making a change that has a few paragraphs of commit message explaining what you're doing and why. As well as a large well-commented change in a primary file, you've made some small incidental changes to other files. You're not going to include comments with all the context and explanation on each of these small changes.

If I'm looking at one of the files you incidentally touched later and don't understand why your change is there, I can check the git blame and have a good understanding of why the code looks like that now.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#22

Post by O5vYtytb »

hirundo wrote: post #7

This is sad, not so much because of the lack of code coming from this world class programmer, but because coding is such fun, and Torvalds isn't having fun programming, else he'd be doing it. I'm closing in on forty years of coding and still get a kick out of it. I'd still be doing it if I weren't getting paid for it. But my skills are at best, uh, modest compared to Linus. I'd think that doing a thing so much better…

Linus still authors code, just not on the kernel. He still seems pretty active on https://github.com/subsurface/subsurface and even some recent commits into git.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#23

Post by riku_iki »

statquontrarian wrote: post #3

> So commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself. Why commit messages rather than code comments?

Code changes can be spread over multiple files, with comments explaining local logic only, and commit message provides overall background about the goal of this change.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#25

Post by steelframe »

xfitm3 wrote: post #15
hirundo wrote: post #7

This is sad, not so much because of the lack of code coming from this world class programmer, but because coding is such fun, and Torvalds isn't having fun programming, else he'd be doing it. I'm closing in on forty years of coding and still get a kick out of it. I'd still be doing it if I weren't getting paid for it. But my skills are at best, uh, modest compared to Linus. I'd think that doing a thing so much better…

Coding is fun but for me collaborative development has stopped being fun. People can be rude, biased, and it seems there is always someone with 50 questions or a concern who sucks the life right out of it.

Have you considered that perhaps you're trying to have your fun at the expense of the maintainability of a shared code base?

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#26

Post by dasil003 »

> commit messages to me are almost as important as the code change itself

This is high on my list of code craftsmanship points. It's very difficult to explain to young programmers who have never worked on an old code base how valuable this is when done well. In fact, often you hear complaints about how a code base "is crap", but more often than not I'd wager this is just a result of the context at the time not being known or appreciated. Frankly, all code we write is heavily governed by context we take for granted at the time, but is in precious short supply 1, 5, 10 years later. If you come back with a different use case later, the original code may very well be unsuited for that purpose. We can argue all day about good judgement and YAGNI, but at the end of the day no one can see all ends, therefore the best we can do is document clearly why we did what we did.

Taking the time to rebase, cleanup, and explain your changes in detail will pay huge dividends for any long-lived project. I've literally had successors write me a thank you note for a commit message from over a decade ago because I take this so seriously.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#27

Post by [deleted] »

steelframe wrote: post #25
xfitm3 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coding is fun but for me collaborative development has stopped being fun. People can be rude, biased, and it seems there is always someone with 50 questions or a concern who sucks the life right out of it.

Have you considered that perhaps you're trying to have your fun at the expense of the maintainability of a shared code base?

[deleted]

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#28

Post by arp242 »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #19
flowersjeff wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not what happened here.

How is that not what happened? Torvalds wrote code, and now he manages other people writing code. He's not a people-manager; he is at least still in a technical role, but he's not a dev anymore.

I assume he's in his current position by choice. He pretty much says so: "It is an interesting job".

He still deals with plenty of code; he just doesn't write original code. Calling it a "managerial or administrative type role" as the previous comment did is somewhat lacking in nuance, IMO.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#29

Post by bob1029 »

xfitm3 wrote: post #15
hirundo wrote: post #7

This is sad, not so much because of the lack of code coming from this world class programmer, but because coding is such fun, and Torvalds isn't having fun programming, else he'd be doing it. I'm closing in on forty years of coding and still get a kick out of it. I'd still be doing it if I weren't getting paid for it. But my skills are at best, uh, modest compared to Linus. I'd think that doing a thing so much better…

Coding is fun but for me collaborative development has stopped being fun. People can be rude, biased, and it seems there is always someone with 50 questions or a concern who sucks the life right out of it.

This is the key. I used to be really crabby with our codebase at work, and programming in general, because it was the only thing I developed on.

I have recently adopted a large, sprawling side-project of which I am the sole developer. Having a big space to play in on the side has really helped me keep my interest pure and exciting. Not answering to anyone but myself is easily the best aspect. The codebase is private and no one but me may ever see it.

I am also a lot more pragmatic about the codebase at work, as I am not trying to squeeze in fun/innovative ideas at the expense of productivity or the experience of other teammates. Now, most of my "blue sky" ideas wind up being things for my side project. Feels like I have a pressure relief valve that I can rely on now. There have already been a few cases where I implement a crazy idea on my side project and determine the abstraction is also an excellent fit for something at work. Being able to iterate on these ideas in a completely separate domain from work concerns allows for deep (and enjoyable) refinement without taking the rest of the enterprise for a trip every time.

Re: Linus Torvalds: 'I Do No Coding Any More'

#30

Post by mynameishere »

ivanstojic wrote: post #14
gentleman11 wrote: post #5

Website will not let me edit with the back button on safari, had to close the tab to escape. Why do so many sites do that?

I can confirm: if you try to back out, you are presented with a blue bar at the top saying something like "before you leave..." https://imgur.com/a/93wjGED

Did you check out the great content?

...don't leave us hanging.

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