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Linus on "acting professionally"

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Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#341

Post by Leepic »

corresation wrote: post #324
Leepic wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Linus doesn't have to be put in his place, and if you don't like that tough luck. Actually, expecting a moderate appreciation of effort isn't by any stretch of the imagination "social expectation". Calling my code shit because it doesn't compile is fine but repeatedly doing so and getting away can only be interpreted as a power play - the very act of using your influence as a leverage to bring your subjective opinio…

but repeatedly doing so and getting away can only be interpreted as a power play And what is repeatedly submitting code that doesn't compile (wasting many people's time)? In this situation Linus absolutely and quite rightly holds 99% of the power, and my point was that the social obligation trump card is being played as a way of trying to equalize the field, and it just isn't useful or valuable in this scenario (the…

I don't think that there are many people who would even dare to suggest that Linus isn't rightly the leader.

Also, just because trash code that doesn't compile is bad (because it is, no denying it) doesn't mean that we can justify every behavior that will get generated, right? If there are incompetent people who don't double-check what they're doing, they should take a KICK. He'll save both himself from the trouble of having to repeatedly call out other people's sheer incompetence and the project.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#342

Post by DannyBee »

DigitalJack wrote: post #263
bad_user wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not think managing an open-source project is so different than running a company. > Linus doesn't run a business. He's the kernel admin He's also the original author. And he still is an awesome developer and the Linux kernel is not his only accomplishment. Git is another one. Linus is one of those people that can change the face of our industry over night and he has done so at least twice. Not only that, but if…

The main difference is everybody is remote. I don't doubt Linus would be less brutal in person.

He isn't different in person if you get him going. In fact, he'll happily admit "he likes to poke people"

Basically, he's a very very very successful troll :)

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#343

Post by acjohnson55 »

Show some intellectual curiosity, people. The same way some hackers get mad at others' unwillingness to dig into math/tech, many of you are refusing to put just a little bit of effort into being civil. It can be difficult to separate what's actually factually making you upset from the basal urge to express raw ire by cursing and belittling, but it becomes easier with practice. Just like math, or any other intelligence based skill.

Once you put some practice in, you can even do it with the same level of brevity as a immature tirade. I have immense respect for Linus and his accomplishments, but he frankly doesn't deserve a medal or apologetics for his refusal to increase his interpersonal intelligence. There is a higher level of humanity to aspire to than yelling at one another like cavemen OR Machiavellian passive-aggressive faux-politeness.

When I taught high school in Baltimore, I taught a lot of students whose most basic frame for interpersonal interaction was might-makes-right yelling and cursing. One of my goals was to demonstrate that no matter what, it's possible to conduct yourself without devolving to that level. It admittedly made it difficult for me to get my points across sometimes, but on the whole, I think I taught my students a very valuable lesson--that there is an alternative. In the end, there was a certain level on which my students always trusted me to treat them with human respect.

I expect more from a professional than a high school student. Being "politically incorrect" can make it easier to express your emotions, but it can also cause deeply held long-term resentments that manifest in unpredictable and damaging ways. Crying foul about political correctness is just making excuses about refusing to put in the effort to see things from others' points of view. And it also refuses to acknowledge that you yourself have your hot buttons that will set you off as well. And when emotional buttons are getting pressed, intellectual messages are getting lost.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#344

Post by lnanek2 »

jhspaybar wrote: post #332
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't know exactly what it is that he said that was offensive in private, but he's actually being pretty reasonable here. I think what's being discussed is Linus' reaction to someone's patch on the lkml a few days ago. https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132 Here is a preview: >What the F*CK, guys? >This piece-of-shit commit is marked for stable, but you clearly never >even test-compiled it, did you?

Wow, I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to say something similar in a code review but instead go with "hey, this looks a little funny, any ideas what you could do to clean it up?" Part of me does think its rude, the other part is jealous he can say it and I can't :)

Haha, yeah. Honestly, being nice in code reviews, half the time the person just argues for half a dozen comments or never addresses the issue, even if it's completely obvious like two methods doing the same thing but with different names. Oh, well, if we have to be nice and not get things done or suffer some idiot code getting in, we have to be nice.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#346

Post by justin66 »

jhspaybar wrote: post #332
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't know exactly what it is that he said that was offensive in private, but he's actually being pretty reasonable here. I think what's being discussed is Linus' reaction to someone's patch on the lkml a few days ago. https://lkml.org/lkml/2013/7/13/132 Here is a preview: >What the F*CK, guys? >This piece-of-shit commit is marked for stable, but you clearly never >even test-compiled it, did you?

Wow, I cannot tell you how many times I've wanted to say something similar in a code review but instead go with "hey, this looks a little funny, any ideas what you could do to clean it up?" Part of me does think its rude, the other part is jealous he can say it and I can't :)

If you're wired anything like a normal human being, you'd observe the effect saying it actually had and you'd stop behaving that way. So think of your current situation as having skipped ahead without the additional damage of a hands-on learning process.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#347

Post by lnanek2 »

theorique wrote: post #250
DanBC wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything you say. The problem that you don't explicitly mention is that people see Linus behaving this way and feel it's acceptable, and they carry on that behaviour. Some open source environments are toxic and horrible and it's hard to correct that when you have very public figures acting in that toxic horrible way.

Linus gets away with it because he's Linus and people are willing to swim through a river of shit to work closely with him. Conversely, an average OSS developer will drive people away with this attitude unless the benefit of working with him is so attractive that it outweighs the pain of abuse (in which case he's probably not 'average' at all). Assholes who really deliver get a pass from (some of) the world. Doesn't…

If you have a popular project, though, or even if you have a crappy project but spend most of your time on work and don't have much time for it - it can be very valuable to drive off people who commit worthless wastes of time like stuff that doesn't compile or pass tests. If I only have time to do one commit or code review per night on my personal project, then I those people are a burden. At Linus' level, his personal project because a full time job and one of the most popular OS in the world, but that doesn't mean it is a good idea for him to start being nice to everyone and getting flooded and not being able to get anything accomplished.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#348

Post by shadowfox »

claudius wrote: post #237
doctorfoo wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News: Where IQ and intelligence trumps being pleasant. So many tech types are assholes.

You'd not take intelligence over ‘being pleasant’? I tend to enjoy the company of an intelligent asshole more than that of a ‘pleasant’ idiot any day.

I tend to prefer pleasant and intelligent personally.

Re: Linus on "acting professionally"

#350

Post by DanBC »

theorique wrote: post #250
DanBC wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with everything you say. The problem that you don't explicitly mention is that people see Linus behaving this way and feel it's acceptable, and they carry on that behaviour. Some open source environments are toxic and horrible and it's hard to correct that when you have very public figures acting in that toxic horrible way.

Linus gets away with it because he's Linus and people are willing to swim through a river of shit to work closely with him. Conversely, an average OSS developer will drive people away with this attitude unless the benefit of working with him is so attractive that it outweighs the pain of abuse (in which case he's probably not 'average' at all). Assholes who really deliver get a pass from (some of) the world. Doesn't…

> Conversely, an average OSS developer will drive people away with this attitude

See the amount of developer churn in the *BSDs and some of the Linux DE projects.

Would we have had Linux on the desktop much earlier if developers used the robustness principle in communicating with their colleagues?

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