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Linus on "acting professionally"

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Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#151

Post by jakobe »

vacri wrote: post #68
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…

Another example of "he's not being polite, why can't be be polite, now I'm going to call him names", in this case, saying that he's mentally disturbed. Why is it that so many people demanding politeness of Torvalds can't live by their own rules? Perhaps what Torvalds is saying is true, that people will find ways around the 'false rules'.

I did not mean to call Torvalds names. Apparently I wasn't careful enough in my wording.

I meant to express my frustration how the community often accepts socially inacceptable behaviour from accomplished people.

When "normal" people fall into a rage, we tell them to learn coping with their anger. If they keep yelling angrily at people, we might even suggest they see a psychiatrist. Not as an insult, but because we sincerely believe that they could maybe learn some coping strategies to get along better with other people.

But for some people the rules are different. When someone complains that Steve Jobs verbally abused his employees, or when someone complains that Linus Torvalds uses unnecessary profanity, a lot of people start to justify this behaviour. They claim it is necessary for their success, etc.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#152

Post by rtpg »

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…

Some thing can happen in spite of things, instead of because of them.

Some people link Job's success to his attitude. But his attitude didn't make him successful, it was his vision and ability to convince people.

That said, I think Linus is fairly professional in the core of his communication. Just because you swear doesn't mean that the message you're passing along isn't.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#153

Post by scotty79 »

vacri wrote: post #117
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.”

And yet your halfway comment still contains an insult - 'half-baked'. I was using the 'compliment sandwich' as a shorthand for reviewing all the commentary to make sure it's pleasant or polite. That stuff does take effort and time, particularly if you aren't intimately familiar with the other party and have to generalise it to the generic person. I've done a hell of a lot of support in my time and this is abundantly…

> There are even people who perform better when you swear around them, because they don't feel like they have to control their language.

The closest friend I'm with the more I swear. What I don't get is people awkwardly swearing in presence of people they just met. I see it as attempt to desperately get connection to other people.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#154

Post by phryk »

smtddr wrote: post #61
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…

So, basically your position is "If you don't like it, get out". I'm not sure this view is productive in any kind of discussion. Personally, I think the amount of abusive speech & profanity in the tech-field is way too much. I assume(incorrectly?) that it's because it's mostly male and a lot of men like to do that to each other. I personally don't do it to anyone and don't like it being directed at me.

Too much profanity? Well butter my ass and call me fucking skittles!

So you want to censor everyone who doesn't buy into your flowery child talk? Fuck that. Cursing is a perfectly fine means of setting emphasis and I sure as shitpissfuckcuntcocksuckermotherfuckertits am not going to surrender that just so some shithead I don't even care about can jack off to his or her little control fantasies.

You don't like that? I couldn't really give less of a fuck; You're supposed to be a tech person, write a few sloc to filter profanity out or something but don't get on my nerves with that shit.

And yes, that was offensive and I am fully aware of that. That was also exactly what I was going for.

I have to concede that abuse is never a good thing, but since you seem to be seeing profanity as a problem I'm not sure we could agree on what exactly constitutes an 'abuse'.

EDIT:

It was (correctly) pointed out that censoring communication was not mentioned or even necessarily implied in smtddr's comment so this might not apply to said comment. That said, this still reflects aptly what I think about censoring away profanity.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#155

Post by Gigablah »

nilved wrote: post #83

The most interesting thing about this post is that, were it not Linus, this comments page would be full of people calling him out.

Were it not Linus, nobody would bat an eyelid, because it's the "internet". Heck, just look at some of the comments here, they're not full of capitalized swear words yet they manage to be more nasty and hurtful than Linus was.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#156

Post by kisstheblade »

kenny_r wrote: post #91
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…

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.

Yeah "perkeleen vittupää" is a pretty "bad" swear/insult. You really have to be upset about somebody to call them that. "Fucking cunthead" is a pretty direct translation :)

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#157

Post by rtpg »

vacri wrote: post #51
nl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've obviously never worked in an office, or you have taken a big step away from reality. Perhaps you have never worked in a good office, on a good team where people respect each other. 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. Why? It's rude and additionally it doesn't seem to achieve anything positive that can't be…

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 saves time when you don't have to carefully structure each criticism in a compliment sandwich and so forth.

I can only imagine only the most socially incompetent people would actually find it a major time-sink to say things civilly. You don't have to make a compliment sandwich, saying "Your kernel patch throws a bunch of warnings, what the fuck is this?" is hell of a lot better than "which one of you retards can't read the guidelines?"

The basis of civility is to avoid personal attacks when it's not about the person. This isn't about the person. You can be civil and still be pissed off.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#158

Post by pavlov »

hahainternet wrote: post #138
pavlov wrote: post #48

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". When has Linus actually worked in an office? Would he really know what it's like? AFAIK, he moved from Finland to USA in 1998 to work at Transmeta. He was already famous at that time, and presumably could dictate his working terms. I recall r…

Why would it matter? He's correct about office environments.

Not in my experience. (Anecdotal evidence - we all produce it and it always smells the same.)

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#159

Post by shawabawa3 »

brk wrote: post #102
sz4kerto wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very hypocritical approach I believe. A few years' ago our ex-prime minister said that if you don't like what's going on in the country, you're free to leave. It doesn't work like that.

Not good comparison. A country is essentially a fixed physical plot of land, with people, resources, climate, etc. If you leave a country you have to leave all of those things (and more) behind. Forking code essentially gives you the ability to take everything, and then move it in your own new direction. You leave behind only the parts you thought were "bad" or unprofessional or whatever.

> Not good comparison. A country is essentially a fixed physical plot of land, with people, resources, climate, etc. If you leave a country you have to leave all of those things (and more) behind.

Yes it is. Saying you can just fork it is like saying you can just move yourself and all your family and friends to another country.

You might be able to move yourself but moving any significant amount of developers is in practise impossible.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#160

Post by tls »

this did not need to be aired out infront of anyone - just like theo handles his business, let linus handle his how he wants. maybe theo rubbed off on him. maybe people like OP can go fuck themselves.
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