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Linus on "acting professionally"

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Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#141

Post by hahainternet »

antirez wrote: post #47
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…

So what is the profesional way to refuse to work with somebody you don't want to, or to mark the work of somebody else as bad? Of course options that will require a lot of time are not good, like gently showing how a "few" things could be improved.

After a few years of tangible disdain for me and after ridiculing me saving his business, I recently refused to work for someone with a succinct 'I quit'.

Of course it was later followed up by telling him to go fuck himself but that's how things go.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#142

Post by syncerr »

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.”

> “Sorry, we’re not going to take this code... "

Why are you apologizing?

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#143

Post by flumbaps »

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…

You really shouldn't call people "fucking stupid" for making mistakes in code. They're clearly not stupid, they're writing complex computer code for a big project. Calling them "fucking stupid" is as much a lie as throwing out empty compliments, and just as counter productive. Smart people don't need to be beaten into shape, just like they don't need to be mollycoddled. If you're being abusive in the workplace, it's because of your own emotional needs, not the people you're being abusive to.

If someone commits code that is fucking stupid then by all means call the code fucking stupid. But then actually take the time to identify the cause for the mistake. Is that programmer following best practises? Are they being careless? Are they working on something they don't have the expertise for? Are they spread too thin? If you identify the problem you can try to fix it. Instead of abuse, you should be giving clear and direct instructions on how to not make mistakes like that ever again. If you call someone "fucking stupid" then you incorrectly identify the problem and, moreover, you're being abusive, which can be very harmful.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#144

Post by gadders »

See, the danger with Linus, and to a similar extent Steve Jobs, is that you will now get a bunch of mediocre developers or managers believing that the best way to get stuff done is to act like an arsehole.

It worked for those two. There are probably a few other people in history it has worked for as well (Patton?). You are not them. If you treat people badly it will bite you in the arse.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#145

Post by flumbaps »

ericd wrote: post #109
valleyer wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

Insulting the person probably serves as a filter - at that point that person either shapes up or stops committing, either of which is a better outcome for Linus than that person continuing to commit crap code for Linus to have to look at/approve. Your more reasonable comment doesn't have the same effect, so it's not the strictly better solution, depending on what Linus values.

Why not just ask them not to commit?

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#146

Post by vacri »

Ygg2 wrote: post #98
vacri wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If it's not meant in an ironic sense, then why post the comments? You have people complaining that someone isn't acting professionally... and then not acting professionally. It serves to bolster Torvalds' point, not weaken it.

If the response is 'context', then it should also be pointed out that we only ever see the slimmest speck of his emails from the list and we never see them in the context in which they're presented. As someone else in the thread mentioned, we don't see the many messages where he doesn't behave this way; we don't see the actual personality that is seen when working with him.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#147

Post by rachelbythebay »

I only have one Linus story. Way back in 2007, he was supposed to come and give a talk on git. I had to do an on-site interview with a candidate immediately beforehand, but managed to get it done and got there in time to see the talk start. I had never seen him in person and figured it might be interesting, particularly since I had actually used git on some projects prior to that point.

This wound up being recorded, and it's online here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8

I think I lasted ten minutes and left after deciding it was too much. There was enough of that kind of energy going around already to willingly sit there and take in more. Besides, I had an interview to write up.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#148

Post by jvdh »

temphn wrote: post #66
CrLf wrote: post #45

http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137390362508794&w=2 This is the start of the thread. It is pretty obvious that no one is being serious about actual violence. It's just banter. Harmless (and not at all unhealty) banter. The type of communication in the LKML has always been straight to the point and without unnecessary diplomacy. Sometimes it reads as assertiveness, sometimes it reads as rudeness. The point is that…

Yeah, that's very useful context. Sarah Sharp is not Linus. She doesn't get to to dictate the tone of the mailing list, and was obviously trying to publicly shame/attack Linus. One doesn't have to endorse Linus' management strategy to grant that (a) it works and (b) it works without Sarah Sharp's input.

The fact that it works does not mean that it can't be improved.

And a context that scares people off is not one that I would say "works".

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#149

Post by b1daly »

jdietrich wrote: post #44

You don't get to tell Linus what is or isn't professional. He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years. However he decides to get that done is his business. Call it rude or impolite, call it thoughtless or insulting, but don't call it unprofessional. If there's one thing that nobody can dispute, it's that Linus knows how to get shit done and knows how to run an effective team. Ther…

What do you mean, precisely? Is there some other meta code of conduct where calling obnoxious behavior unprofessional is itself a violation?

It beggars disbelief that some posters here can't see that torvald's insults add noise to his critiques. He states the issue, then ads in a bunch of pointless aggression. It seems like being honest succinct and to the point is most efficient. If your undies are truly in a bunch, you could add a comment at the end along those lines.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#150

Post by mehta »

sz4kerto wrote: post #111
fosap wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that is the concept of the "benevolent dictator". If he is a dick, incompetent or does technical stuff you don't like, fork. IMO the best way to run FOSS project, but of course there are others.

Linux is not just code. It's a brand, a community, whatever. As people on HN should very well know, success is mostly about execution and luck - lot of people have very good ideas. The reason behind Linux being so successful is only partly attributable to it's technical merit (well, from the technical standpoint it didn't have anything too exciting when it started to have traction). It had to have all luck, good mome…

I don't think luck plays that big a part. But regardless, As you said, execution is very integral to the success of the project and since Linus, has executed the project so well over the years, it does say something about the execution style(it works and people still support him as well as the way he leads :).
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