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Linus on "acting professionally"

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Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#171

Post by rtpg »

vacri wrote: post #131
officemonkey wrote: post #85

Linus gets to do what he wants to do because he was extraordinarily successful in his field from a very young age. In other words, he's spoiled. If he had to "work for a living," ie: work in a job he needed, rather than a job he wanted, he would likely have had a job which enforced behavioral norms. He probably wouldn't have been as happy, but he likely would more polite. One of the things schools do is to socialize…

And yet another comment chiding Torvalds for not maintaining civility... while insulting him ('being a douche'). You talk about being 'incapable of realising' - perhaps review your own comment.

isn't any form of criticism an insult? Plus we're talking about Torvald's attitude, hard to avoid personal attacks when we're talking about the person himself.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#172

Post by kisstheblade »

This is a cultural thing. In Finland we are more into brutal honesty than fake politeness (although this is sadly changing, we're getting more "american" in this regard). I'm not saying that there isn't a middle road there somewhere which would be better and more effective, but in general actions are more important than words. I like people who say their honest opinion instead of what I want to hear (psychopaths mainly always tell you what you want to hear and are "nice" to you, when it suits them). That way I know that they are serious if they for example tell me "job well done" or something like that. If Linus says that he thinks some work is good or bad then you can actually trust that he means it and isn't just saying so for some "PC" reason or some such.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#173

Post by whydee »

I call bullshit on that entire argument. Assholes will be assholes no matter what the context, and while I don't know Linus personally nor have I worked with him, I can spot his in-defense-of-being-an-asshole argument from a mile away. That's all it is. That entire text can be summarized as "I like to be an asshole sometimes, deal with it or leave".

The people who curse and yell and throw angry hissy fits are the exact same people who infuse work environments with the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords when forced to operate in a professional environment.

If his self-description really is accurate ("I'm not polite, and I get upset easily"), then telling other people "deal with it" is just an asshole move to do, nothing more nothing less. He could stand to become a better person by figuring out why he gets upset so easily and finding ways to either mitigate or work around that deficiency. Because however effective he may be right now, he would be even more effective then.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#174

Post by vacri »

jakobe wrote: post #151
vacri wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Torvalds is not 'falling into a rage', he's venting, and doing it in a controlled manner, as a ton of people do. He also doesn't 'keep yelling angrily' - it only appears that way because the only comments of his that get publicised are the fruity ones.

I remember one of this 'Linus Swore!' threads on HN a while back, linking to a comment of Torvalds' that had little in it but anger... presented out of context. I went back and had a look, and it was in a bug thread where it was around comment 120. Up to that point, most of his comments (about 10% of the thread) were informative and trying to explain the issue to the recipient of his eventual ire, who obstinately refused to give way. That Torvalds had spent a dozen patient comments was not advertised... only the one with his final anger.

This is why these threads fire passion in me despite not being a kernel dev myself, because there is clear and constant misrepresentation of who he is and how he operates.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#175

Post by camus »

professee wrote: post #50

It figures a top voted comment on Hacker News is that Linus is wrong and we should all hold hands and sing camp songs. There are tons of useful discussions that simply don't happen on HN because anybody with an actual strong opinion gets helbanned. For instance Google's Go language is lauded here because of fake politeness, but almost universally dismissed elsewhere. This discussion has already achieved its real goal…

> For instance Google's Go language is lauded here because of fake politeness,

that's called "political correctness". I thought HN was about "disruption"... And yes , here you cant critize GO or suffer the consequences ;)

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#176

Post by rtpg »

phryk wrote: post #154
smtddr wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

profanity as a language tool is meant to accentuate things (like an exclamation mark). If you overuse it, it becomes useless.

Swearing all the time is not equivalent to talking like an adult, despite what you might think.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#177

Post by benjamincburns »

rtpg wrote: post #157
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 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'…

I don't think Linus claims social competence as one of his virtues. Though in a Machiavellian way it definitely is.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#178

Post by pmelendez »

sclangdon wrote: post #133
pmelendez wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "He has led one of the most important human endeavours of the last hundred years" Yes, Linux has remarkable importance mostly because its installed base (IMHO it doesn't offer any innovation from an OS perspective, other that being stable enough and free) However, that doesn't give Linus a free card to be abusive and rude. Yes, not being polite and being insulting is indeed being unprofessional, there are ways to s…

Making people do things against their will or fear punishment by death is not exactly the same thing is swearing at someone is it? Anyone who works with Linus does so freely and can stop at any time they choose. Furthermore, applying today's morale standards to civilizations thousands of years old doesn't strengthen your point as well as you think it does.

I think you missed my point, I was addressing a comment that basically stated that the behaviour is OK because he knows how to get things done and I gave an extreme example of how to get things done with an innapropiate behaviour. I think the comparison is correct in that context

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#179

Post by jonahx »

scotty79 wrote: post #168
jonahx wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Personally I would much rather receive the second feedback as it does not contain a threat.

edited. the point i was making was to express the same content in two different styles.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#180

Post by [deleted] »

rtpg wrote: post #157
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 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'…

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