Linus Torvalds on aliasing • Hacker News Board

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#271

Post by josephg » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

richmarr wrote: post #246

ralfn wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When somebody speaks their mind, everybody around them knows where they stand. I doubt there is difference between about how often people resent other people around the world. But I do consider it more humane if resentment isn't hidden under the surface. It's easier to trust Linus than a tactfull politician. That should make us all think.

> It's easier to trust Linus than a tactfull politician. That should make us all think. I can kinda see where you're going with this, ie. the idea that knowing what someone is thinking means you can trust them... but I disagree. To my mind verbal abuse doesn't mean they're speaking their mind, it means they've lost control. Based on these blow-ups I'd certainly question trusting Torvalds in any high stakes situation…

> I'd certainly question trusting Torvalds in any high stakes situation that required tact under pressure...

Huh? When are kernel developers in high stakes situations that require tact? He doesn't host peace talks for a living. He manages Linux. He needs to be trusted for high stakes situations requiring technical clarity and technical decision making. And between our phones, our internet services and our banking infrastructure, basically everybody in modern society depends on the linux kernel working correctly.

> To my mind verbal abuse doesn't mean they're speaking their mind, it means they've lost control.

What? I just don't see it that way at all. If he'd lost control the criticism would be less technically grounded, and he wouldn't have merged the patch anyway. To me, Torvald's temper clearly expresses the value of "make the kernel good, don't make it be bad". Blowing up like this is an expensive social signal - it shows that to him the kernel being good is so important that he's willing to risk losing face and support to do so. I agree with other commenters that there are probably better ways he could get his point across; but how he expresses himself is completely authentic and aligned with his value of technical competence.

And that buys a lot of trust in my eyes.

And I don't think its just me. Trump does the same thing, and I suspect the "I can trust him because he gets angry" vibe helped him get elected. (For better or worse.)

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#272

Post by jeisc » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

It is people that matter; all software is only made to serve people. One person can be the holder of a solution to an important problem, so that person must be able to express his ideas even when they go against the common wisdom.

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#273

Post by dagenix » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 6:58 AM UTC

LaGrange wrote: post #28

dagenix wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's cute. The mere fact that you say that makes it clear you have no idea who Trump is.

A celebrity who speaks with a highly authoritative voice whether they have any idea what they're talking about or not. Sounds about right.

Linus invented Linux and git. He very much is qualified to talk about his oppinion on aliasig rules. Frankly, anyone who has worked in C is. But, if we're going to play the call to authortiy game: who the fuck are you and what have you done?

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#274

Post by jhasse » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 8:27 AM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #80

caf wrote: post #27

It's important to bear in mind that Linux isn't written in standard C - it's written in a dialect of C implemented by recent-ish versions of GCC (there is a particular minimum GCC version supported), with certain compiler switches. There's nothing wrong with this - it's an important enough project to be able to make those kinds of demands.

Android kernels are built with Clang. So really it's just missing support for MSVC, for obvious reasons.

MSVC doesn't support all of C99 anyway.

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#275

Post by geocar » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 10:09 AM UTC

favorited wrote: post #265

geocar wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. And that one is a deal-breaker for me. Nested functions is exactly how you would write it in assembly. Does anyone know why clang won't support them? "Blocks" are fucking stupid.

Because throwing a trampoline on an executable stack is a hack and a glaring exploitation vector. http://lists.llvm.org/pipermail/cfe-dev/2015-September/04503...

Straw man.

GCC doesn't use a trampoline for the following code:

    long f1 (void) { long i = 0; void f2(void) { i++; } f2(); return i; }
    int main() { return f1(); }

So maybe David Chisnall doesn't know what he's talking about? Or maybe he's talking about a specific use case further up the thread. I'm not going to speculate.

But to edify on my "Blocks" are fucking stupid throwaway, in clang you can do this:

    long f1 (void) { __block long i = 0; void (^f2)(void) = ^{ i++; }; f2(); return i; }
    int main() { return f1(); }

which is close enough I could almost paper over the syntax differences with macros, but clang produces unnecessary allocations(!) which are completely unacceptable for my targets and make clang unworkable for me -- even if I could stomach the dogshit assembly that clang produces during testing and continue to use gcc on the packaging server.

Surely clang could simply disallow passing the address of the nested function, if it's trying to protect people from themselves?

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#276

Post by mort96 » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 10:53 AM UTC

LaGrange wrote: post #263

mort96 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link to where Linus talks in a highly authoritative voice when he has yesn't idea what he's talking about? All the cases I've seen where he's talking in an authoritative voice have been about topics he's an expert in.

I mean, just google anytime he talks about security or licensing. And, frankly, people more expert on, say, C, than Torvalds, are dime a dozen. Okay, a large heap of dimes, but still. They just tend to swear less, and in the OP you can see them defering to him to deescalate the situation.

It's not interesting to argue about who's "more expert". If Linus is just "slightly expert", that's very far away from having no idea what he's talking about. My claim wasn't that Linus was the "expertest" C programmer in the world.

I'm neither an expert in security nor in licensing, most of the things I've heard him say about either sounds pretty reasonable. Could you link to an example where he talks out of his ass, and explain why what he's saying is stupid? Both licensing and security strikes me as the kind of thing the author of the world's most used FOSS kernel has thought a lot about.

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#277

Post by richmarr » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

josephg wrote: post #271

richmarr wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's easier to trust Linus than a tactfull politician. That should make us all think. I can kinda see where you're going with this, ie. the idea that knowing what someone is thinking means you can trust them... but I disagree. To my mind verbal abuse doesn't mean they're speaking their mind, it means they've lost control. Based on these blow-ups I'd certainly question trusting Torvalds in any high stakes situation…

> I'd certainly question trusting Torvalds in any high stakes situation that required tact under pressure... Huh? When are kernel developers in high stakes situations that require tact? He doesn't host peace talks for a living. He manages Linux. He needs to be trusted for high stakes situations requiring technical clarity and technical decision making. And between our phones, our internet services and our banking inf…

> Huh? When are kernel developers in high stakes situations that require tact?

Parent commenter made a comparison between Torvalds and politicians. I was exploring that comparison.

> If he'd lost control the criticism would be less technically grounded, and he wouldn't have merged the patch anyway.

Losing control in one way doesn't mean losing control in all ways. Saying someone has "lost control" doesn't automatically mean that they've shat themselves, for example.

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#278

Post by richmarr » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 1:07 PM UTC

zwischenzug wrote: post #257

richmarr wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your implication, that this aspect of Torvalds' interpersonal style is vindicated by Linux' success, is a classic Halo effect. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

I'm answering your question: maybe that's how he measures its success.

So your suggestion here is that Torvalds has some monthly 'Linux success' metrics and varies the amount and style of swearing based on those.

It'd certainly make a good sitcom.

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#279

Post by mistermann » Sat, Jun 09, 2018, 6:46 PM UTC

ankurdhama wrote: post #10

mistermann wrote: post #2

I sometimes wonder what the world of computing, or even the world in general, would look like today if Linus Torvalds hadn't existed, or happened to have not gotten into computers.

Someone else would have.

They very well may have, but is there any compelling evidence that leads one to such a conclusion? (Or, were you referring to the purchase of GitHub...in which case, ignore my comment.)

Re: Linus Torvalds on aliasing

#280

Post by coldtea » Sun, Jun 10, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

JakeTyo wrote: post #267

coldtea wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if he was "outright toxic", then he would have had negative effects on the kernel development. Which I don't see happening. So what people mean with that is not that he actually has a toxic effect, but that they dislike his tone.

This is a malformed argument. Having a 'toxic' personality does not mean he will produce bad code. Two completely different things.

I didn't say that "toxic = he'll produce bad code".

I said that the claim of those saying he's language is toxic is that his language poisons the Linux kernel community development.

And yet, I counter-argue, I see it doing just fine, and going from strength to strength, over the last 25 years. If there's any toxicity effect, I wont see it affecting much, if anything.

I could accept that it might have led some people who could have otherwise contributed away. But I don't see this having any substantial effect on Linux's development.

Perhaps it's even beneficial (since the outcome and results from Linux's development team is better than from any other Unix-like OSS OS, with their supposedly not toxic leaders).

If that freedom of language is all it takes to keep Linus happy, and stewarding the project as well as he has done all these decades, then so be it...