311–320 of 408 posts
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Really? How so? If you have abstract types then you can easily make internal changes without making those changes visible externally.
Some examples, 1 - Not all changes can be kept internal, for example adding a new case to an ADT 2 - Internal changes can still alter the semantic of the API, even if from the outside everything still looks the same from the type system point of view
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"Seriously, it's the kind of garbage that makes me think your opinion and your code cannot be relied on" is, quite bluntly, a personal attack, directly commenting on an entire developer's code history and knowledge based on one single issue. This could be worded a lot better. The profanity is also unnecessary. The rule of thumb I've seen in your typical management oriented business books ( eg, your books / training l…
> Unfortunately, the Linux community as a whole has a reputation in some circles for being overly "hostile" and "toxic". Linus himself has this reputation. How much this reputation dents Linux contribution and usage isn't known, but I doubt anyone can say that this is a positive. Except that it is still being used unlike the other "nice" projects. BeOS. For example.
What I know is that I've never read advice geared for managers which states that the route to success comes from being an abrasive boss.
I'm always eager to read Linus's rants. I wish more of my coworkers were like him. I hate the environment where nobody reacts strongly to anything! If somebody fucks up hard and refuses to own up, I (or whoever's in charge) should be able to shout at them. It's only natural.
The problem is that often things are not so clear-cut... what seems like a fuckup at first glance or from one perspective might be something different (perhaps one thing is messed up but it was to fix another thing, or perhaps you are mistaken and things are just different but not "fucked up", etc). As soon as you start shouting at someone, they will tend to get defensive and dig in their heels, thus making it more d…
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It is just as disingenuous as saying "details don't matter". bonzini's comment was saying a line needs to be drawn, and I agree with that. It's pretty clear the line needs to not include "breaking on version number updates", less clear what it also needs to not include.
No, in fact, it is pretty obvious, at least to people doing kernel dev. The contract in this case is that there will always be a version number, and anyone who expects it not to change is an idiot or just being obtuse.
> anyone who expects it not to change is an idiot or just being obtuse
If this was the case, Microsoft would have never had to skip from Windows 8 to Windows 10 (see below in another comment: "starts with Windows 9" was used in the wild to detect Windows 95/98).
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> Unfortunately, the Linux community as a whole has a reputation in some circles for being overly "hostile" and "toxic". Linus himself has this reputation. How much this reputation dents Linux contribution and usage isn't known, but I doubt anyone can say that this is a positive. Except that it is still being used unlike the other "nice" projects. BeOS. For example.
It is possible to be technically brilliant and wildly succeed in your project, and usually do overall good when it comes to project management... and yet have certain personality flaws that may hinder your management skills. What I know is that I've never read advice geared for managers which states that the route to success comes from being an abrasive boss.
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What behavior? Linus's comments were carefully directed at the bad behavior that needed to be fixed. I don't see any personal attacks. Linus is a manager, and part of being a manager includes putting your foot down when someone is causing problems. Ideally, the situation should be handled directly and unambiguously ("The thing you're doing is incorrect and causing problems. Stop doing that.") before the problems beco…
"Seriously, it's the kind of garbage that makes me think your opinion and your code cannot be relied on" is, quite bluntly, a personal attack, directly commenting on an entire developer's code history and knowledge based on one single issue. This could be worded a lot better. The profanity is also unnecessary. The rule of thumb I've seen in your typical management oriented business books ( eg, your books / training l…
I don't see how this is a personal attack. I call the quoted comment a plainly-stated critique of a developer's portfolio. If you have repeatedly demonstrated a problem following basic requirements (ref: "denying the regression now for three weeks"), that's a good reason to presume problems might exist (i.e. "your code cannot be relied upon"). Linus tends to write this type of "blunt" letter only after other ("nicer") attempts have repeatedly failed, and a pattern of problematic behavior exists.
Accurately describing someone's reputation based on their actual work and behavior is not a personal attack. Without false claims - aka actual slander or libel - you earn your own reputation which other people can and will include in their opinions about you.
> The profanity is also unnecessary.
I don't see any profanity in the quoted comment.
> the Linux community
...is another matter entirely, and a discussion for another thread.
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It's not clear to me either. From John's replies it also seemed to be an OpenSUSE bug. On the other hand, if it's bad enough it certainly makes sense to treat it as a kernel bug. The difficulty lies in finding where to draw the line.
It's laid out further in the thread [1]. The key quote comes from Thorsten: > All that afaics doesn't matter. If a new kernel breaks things for people > (that especially includes people that do not update their userland) > then it's a kernel regression, even if the root of the problem is in > usersland. Linus (CCed) said that often enough [1] http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1710.3/02487.html
The problem is that apparently this is true for all of OpenSUSE, Debian and Ubuntu, and that's when a userspace bug becomes in practice a kernel regression.
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Correlation, however, is not causation. You can't say that Linux is wildly successful because Linus behaves as he does.
It's not even correlation. Correlation is: (if A then B) AND (if not A then not B) Every day, the rooster crows and the sun rises; that's not correlation. Periodically, Linus vocalizes in this way and Linux releases.
And we're trying to deny that his behavior is even correlated with Linux' success?
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Dressing someone down publicly, in a tone based on anger and frustration, is a form of humiliation, and humiliation is a form of bullying.
Brutal honesty isn't for everyone. I personally grew up with friends who would deal out this kind of thing and I wouldn't feel bullied or humiliated. Sometimes it got to you but, there's no way around that, but over time you learned to develop thicker skin and bounce back without getting feelings hurt. Especially when it's a personality style combined with the fact it comes from a place of caring deeply about the sub…
Yes, by all means people should try to develop a thick skin and would benefit from that throughout life. That would lead to X% improvement and Y% who still were dealt with in a counterproductive way.
There's a wide range of capacity for dealing with this stuff. General Macarthur was infinitely strong minded, but when he saw someone with war induced PTSD in a hospital bed he slapped him across the face for being a coward. I give him the benefit of the doubt that his own strength made it difficult to see what was a much less understood thing back then. This case is not even close to PTSD, but the concept is the same in that emotional capacity varies widely, even when we practice resiliency.
Linus caring passionately about the project I think is irrelevant, the question is what leadership approach yields the desired results with the least downsides.
>...a culture trend to treat every small comment as potentially devastatingly hurtful, >training kids to be thin skinned...this highly disincentivizes honesty and will... >create a lot of inefficiency in business...
That's the fallacy right there. There's nothing stopping people from demanding excellence, demanding results. Indeed, high standards should be the bar, and if their are multiple ways apparent to achieve them, the one with the least negatives should be applied. That's smart for both business and morality.
>>sacrificing full honesty and non-heavily filtered emotional opinions in order >>to never have these personal attacks is just not worth it
This is another critical point. I do not advocate (and I think many others as well) for one second that honesty, directness, fidelity, and impact of communication be sacrificed. I think in some cases you do have to break eggs to make an omelette. I just believe the cases where being an asshole is required to achieve a certain level of effectiveness is in general exceptional, and that it also wasn't the only way in this particular case.
Btw, none of this is really a critique of Linus. Yes I think he could have done better, but there are thousands of conversations like this everyday. This just happens to be a mini case study in leadership styles and the options for achieving the required results.
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There's an implicit idea around our culture that the more uncontrolled emotional content that someone communicates, especially anger, the more 'honest' they are - I think because it's intimidating, leaving less room for debate; it makes reasoning very difficult, leaving even less room for a rational approach; it's message is of being uncompromising, which also cuts off any thinking or discussion. By eliminating think…
I will never understand why this has been downvoted.
- Speaks in platitudes about the topic in a way that shows a thin understanding of the context and only sounds smart to people that also aren't familiar with the context.
- Armchair psychiatry used to advance a moralizing message.
- All over the place while deep in a comment thread, seemingly more interested in hearing themselves talk than carrying on the conversation.