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Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests

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Re: Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests

#131

Post by sixbrx »

marcamillion wrote: post #97
Karunamon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus is kind of infamous for his rants and have been for years (especially on the mailing lists.. I've seen him tear into people for willful ignorance on the kernel dev lists more than once). I've never really seen them as cranky because they're spot on. Cranky old men usually don't have anything other than opinion behind their rantings.. Linus can at least defend his position. Given his contributions to the world o…

Well...this debate always seems to come down to...do we let geniuses just do whatever the hell they want. The answer is...I am not sure. Either way, there are many decisions that people make that comes down to style preference and sure the 'purists' might think it is a watering down of programming....but it makes it more appealing to new developers. I can see Torvalds ranting on Ruby as not a 'real' language....I don…

> do we let geniuses just do whatever the hell they want

Today, he wants to manage his own repository with the vcs he created, in his own way, but tomorrow! - who knows if we don't stop him, probably rape and murder! We can't just let him do whatever the hell he wants!!!

Re: Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests

#132

Post by smacktoward »

bermanoid wrote: post #24
lobo_tuerto wrote: post #3

I hope the github folks get involved in this. I'm specially interested in what they have to say about why they decided to go with what Linus calls _their own totally inferior version_. Love this no-nonsense style, but let me say that it's no only the style, but that Linus has enough on his side to back it up.

You only love the style because he has enough on his side to back it up. Anyone else that acted like Linus does on a regular basis would be considered childish and arrogant. I'd take Github's version of any feature, any day, over the official git version, any time they differed - Git is a notoriously user-hostile piece of software interface-wise, and pretty much the only thing it has going for it on the usability fro…

> You only love the style because he has enough on his side to back it up. Anyone else that acted like Linus does on a regular basis would be considered childish and arrogant.

Probably true, but when you've changed the technology world twice before age 40 people tend to cut you some additional slack.

Re: Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests

#133

Post by sophacles »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #105
cedsav wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you're missing the importance of proper commit messages and the fact that github doesn't seem to steer users toward good habits. Given the size of his projects and the number of contributors, I find it reasonable to demand well documented and informative logs. As a developer, you have to be considerate of the time of people who have to decipher your work and intent. Obviously, it'd be better if the UI was promp…

And with distributed development, there needs to be accountability, arguably a greater standard of it. I, too, would rather err on the side of a conservative approach, especially since it pertains to the Linux kernel.

To add to dclowd9901's point -- for a full understanding of what can happen to a giant project if accountability is not strictly kept and logged, see the SCO case (and its related firestorm). Linus and many others went through a lot of crap and are understandably a bit strict about preventing that from happening again.

Re: Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests

#135

Post by aerique »

marcamillion wrote: post #68

I don't mean to be overly critical, but is it just me or are the 'godfathers' of computer science starting to sound like cranky old men? I mean....ok....this pull request being inferior to the way HE (the creator of Git) imagined it (or implemented it) is a bit petty imho. What's with the complaining? I am sure this is not the first time I have heard him complaining about something on Github or some other 'new techno…

I think it has to do with time and how Linus wants to spend his resources. If you've got small OS project you would be happy with every feature or bug fix and probably wouldn't complain about the format of a pull request.

However Linus is heading a huge project and besides that he is famous as well. Everybody wants his time, if only to show an e-mail in which he flamed them to death or to brag they got a commit into the Linux kernel tree.

So it is basically a matter of respecting his very limited resources.

Re: Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests

#136

Post by why-el »

cleaver wrote: post #76
why-el wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It always puzzled me why his commits (and in fact standard commits) ought to start with a verb that is not in its past form. When I started using git four months ago (such a newbie), I would write something like "Fixed this" instead of "Fix this". Anybody with more insights on this? I am just curious.

I can think of a few reasons for the grammar rules in the commit message... It is direct, concise, consistent and tends to active voice rather than passive voice. Further, not everyone writing or reading the messages will be a native English speaker. Avoiding past-tense forms just makes it easier.

I am actually not a native English speaker and I always thought that this was hard to understand specifically because English is my first language. But again folks provided enough information for me to understand the reasons for it to be this way.

Re: Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests

#137

Post by sage_joch »

why-el wrote: post #46
mjs wrote: post #35

It's instructive to read Linus's commits to his hobby project "subsurface": https://github.com/torvalds/subsurface/commits/master Even if I can't code like Linus, I can at least try to write commit messages like his…

It always puzzled me why his commits (and in fact standard commits) ought to start with a verb that is not in its past form. When I started using git four months ago (such a newbie), I would write something like "Fixed this" instead of "Fix this". Anybody with more insights on this? I am just curious.

This is the first time I've seen his commits, but I do the same thing at work, deliberately. I don't pretend to know his reasons, but I've always had fun with the idea that if there were a super high-level language, it would look similar to a commit message and the corresponding changes would take place. And so I have changes that look like "Optimize the foo() function", etc.

Re: Linus Torvalds won't do github pull requests

#139

Post by [deleted] »

why-el wrote: post #46
mjs wrote: post #35

It's instructive to read Linus's commits to his hobby project "subsurface": https://github.com/torvalds/subsurface/commits/master Even if I can't code like Linus, I can at least try to write commit messages like his…

It always puzzled me why his commits (and in fact standard commits) ought to start with a verb that is not in its past form. When I started using git four months ago (such a newbie), I would write something like "Fixed this" instead of "Fix this". Anybody with more insights on this? I am just curious.

[deleted]
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