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Linus on "acting professionally"

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Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#91

Post by kenny_r »

stephenr wrote: post #22
ealexhudson wrote: post #11

Linus is dead wrong here. When he says acting professionally means "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords", he's attacking a straw man: none of that behaviour is professional, and to say that professional behaviour must degenerate to that behaviour is a stretch at best. Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a…

You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality. The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism". People are emotional, reactionary creatures with very different needs. These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it. As was shown on a recent post…

I looked up the mail you're referring to: https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132

My Finnish colleague seems to like it. I'm told shouting "Perkele!" is a great stress-reliever.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#92

Post by davidw »

valleyer wrote: post #82
vacri wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's rude and additionally it doesn't seem to achieve anything positive that can't be achieved more politely. It saves time when you don't have to carefully structure each criticism in a compliment sandwich and so forth. It's understood in this environment that that's how the story goes - the excerpts people see of 'linus being rude again' are tut-tutted by a bunch of people who've never read a single other message o…

It’s not as black and white as you make it out to be. On one end of the spectrum, we have the inane “compliment sandwich”. On the other, we have Linus saying “your code is shit”. In the middle, we have professional yet effective criticism. Something like, “Sorry, we’re not going to take this code — it’s too half-baked and exposes some serious security vulnerabilities.”

Even "your code is shit" is direct, but directed at the code, not the person. He seems to sometimes take it even farther and call people stupid, which just seems wrong to me. "This code is shit" seems like it'd be even better, as it takes even more of the 'you' out of it.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#93

Post by Skalman »

stephenr wrote: post #22
ealexhudson wrote: post #11

Linus is dead wrong here. When he says acting professionally means "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords", he's attacking a straw man: none of that behaviour is professional, and to say that professional behaviour must degenerate to that behaviour is a stretch at best. Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a…

You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality. The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism". People are emotional, reactionary creatures with very different needs. These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it. As was shown on a recent post…

If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it.

Why? Wouldn't you achieve the same thing by calling the commit fucking stupid? Why resort to personal attacks?

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#95

Post by kghose »

jonahx wrote: post #56
stephenr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality. The things Linus mentions are what happens as a result of supposed "professionalism". People are emotional, reactionary creatures with very different needs. These people are kernel developers, not 4 year olds. If they commit code that is fucking stupid, they should be called fucking stupid for it. As was shown on a recent post…

this is a false dichotomy. it's possible to be succint, harsh, and directly to the point without swearing or being abusive. for example, off the top of my head: "stephen, this code is riddled with basic errors and is completely unacceptable. please fix a, b, and c immediately and know that if you make mistakes like this again, your contributions will no longer be welcome." versus: "stephen, WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WIT…

I upvoted you and would like to add a reply to emphasize how correct I think this is.

honest open criticism != rude dick

It takes a little more work, because you have to think carefully about your words and calm down, but that action itself makes

a) the criticism more useful b) creates a frame where the criticism is more likely to be acted on and leave no resentment

Also, I believe that apologizing is something we should do more often. As in "I don't apologize for my behavior" is not as good a path as "I'm sorry I blew up, but I did have a point".

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#96

Post by glogla »

jakobe wrote: post #37

Torvalds seems to be a real bully. And it hurts me to see all these responses justifying his behaviour, as if this is the way it must be. Just look at this message: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1TUvG3J... There is no justification for this kind of behaviour. If anybody else behaved this way, they would be sent to a psychiatrist. But apparently since it's Linus Torvalds, he's just being a littl…

This email makes me wonder if Linus just likes hurting people.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#97

Post by Lapsa »

Nrsolis wrote: post #31
ealexhudson wrote: post #11

Linus is dead wrong here. When he says acting professionally means "fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords", he's attacking a straw man: none of that behaviour is professional, and to say that professional behaviour must degenerate to that behaviour is a stretch at best. Aggression is not warranted in a professional environment; neither overt (a…

The real danger here is that once you've developed the habit of berating people who screw up, you'll continue to do it when it's not really called for. I'm no shrinking violet. I got a good ass-chewing from time to time in the Navy and each time I deserved it. That said, you'd be surprised to hear that ass-chewing doesn't happen NEARLY as often as you'd expect it to in a hyper-aggressive life-or-death type world like…

Man, you were in navy. You got completely different prism to look through.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#98

Post by Ygg2 »

vacri wrote: post #57
Ygg2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just gonna post these two gems I found at a previous thread about Linus ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6050443 ): http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442916... http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3977141&cid=442909... To me Linus is kinda like Wagner, I do like and enjoy his work, but as a person he is not someone I'd aspire to emulate.

Both of those links have comments that chide Torvalds for not being polite... and then call him names. Such hypocrisy. edit: hrm, that rather seems your point in linking them.

It's not meant in an ironic sense.

I'd agree there are degrees of someone being a dick. There is also the matter of it being done in different context, it's different to be a asshole in public is different that in semi-privacy of a mailing list.

Another thing to note, that both commenters didn't go into foreign language swear mode :) and called Linus a devil's cunthead. They pointed out he is behaving as douchebag.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#99

Post by loginalready »

Besides Linus' very personal opinion, this, and the discussion here on HN, once again highlights a major cultural difference between the US and most of the rest of the world in two areas: (bad) language and legal liability.

In the area of language, Americans in general seem to way more sensitive to "bad" language than most other (at least Western) cultures.

As far as legal liability is concerned, it seems to me that the US has gone completely overboard in banning normal human interaction that might lead to undesirable consequences from professional environments in order to avoid legal issues.

In both cases, the term "professional" is used as a euphemism for "enforced conformity".

And I agree with Linus, this "acting" professional (and "acting" is exactly what it is, not "being" professional), leads to repressing normal human interaction which then expresses itself in much more damaging and underhanded ways.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#100

Post by vacri »

I think that there is something of a mismatch in taking the contents of a private email public to complain about them, then complaining about a lack of professionalism on the part of the other person.
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