6 ms·

Here is a well-considered riposte from Brett Glass: https://www.quora.com/Hacker-Culture-Who-was-Brett-Glass-named-in-the-original-bikeshed-email/answer/Brett-

by suchow 10y ago

Here is a well-considered riposte from Brett Glass: https://www.quora.com/Hacker-Culture-Who-was-Brett-Glass-named-in-the-original-bikeshed-email/answer/Brett-Glass?srid=hhL7 https://www.quora.com/Hacker-Culture-Who-was-Brett-Glass-nam...

brandmeyer 10y ago
Not actually a riposte, more of an example of how an "in group" can lay claim to a term and change its meaning. In the original context, bikeshedding was the practice of the core maintainers micro-managing a change in what seems to be a dominance display. Mr. Glass's description is that the "in group" started using the term to denigrate outside engineers' small-but-useful improvements, in what also seems to be a dominance display.
- tedunangst 10y ago
  Like many other negative terms, it's only bikeshedding when "they" do it. "Here's an idiotic patch." No, this is a bad idea. It leaks memory like a sieve. "OMG, stop bikeshedding!"
  - CodeMage 10y ago
    It would be interesting to see whether it really happened like that, but I'm sadly not interested enough to invest that much energy. I did try digging more into why PHK picked on Brett Glass specifically in his e-mail and I turned away from that endeavor in disgust after only 10 minutes. (For those who want to try themselves, go Google "brett glass politeness" as a starting point) It's actually very hard to get to the bottom of these things. Back when computers were the sole domain of us geeks and nerds, the culture of downright rudeness was a lot more widespread and tolerated than nowadays. The usual excuse was "content over form", meaning that if I say your patch is stupid because it leaks memory like a sieve, the important thing is that your patch leaks memory, not how you feel about my tone. Which is a reasonable justification when applied to a stupid patch, but turns into a bad excuse when people start calling each other names. Some of that culture lives on to this very day: we've all read more than one rant by Linus Torvalds where he cusses out someone who tried to submit something stupid to the kernel. Once you get over the fact that the language is uncalled for and that the same message could have been delivered with equal force without cussing, you can actually try to ascertain whether the message itself was deserved or not. In Linus's case, it usually seems deserved. Which brings me back to Brett Glass, who was indeed called names by PHK and others on the lists. Was that okay? I've already established that I don't think it was, but the real question is whether he "deserved" it, in the sense of whether he really was pissing off everyone on the list with bad ideas and whether there really were people calling for banning him or not. Like I already said, I don't know the answer, because I really do have better things to do today than wade through vitriol from the 90's. However, if you want to discuss Brett Glass, that's really the question you should be asking. Just because his post on Quora sounds reasonable and polite when compared to nerd-rage that was commonplace on the mailing lists -- the same kind of nerd-rage that would brand anyone as a "colossal douchebag" if used on public forums today -- it doesn't mean his claims were true. For my part, I would reserve my judgment. On the one hand, it's quite common for an entrenched group to exhibit behavior Glass accused them of. On the other hand, we're dealing with someone who's opposing the Net Neutrality for his personal gain. It's most likely that both sides were at fault, as it usually happens in sordid reality we live in.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      I meant more generally, not referring to a specific incident. Recently, as the term 'bikeshedding' has gained popularity, I'd say for every instance of bikeshedding I see, there's two occasions in which somebody tries to ram a bad patch through deflecting all criticism with accusations of bikeshedding.
      - nickpsecurity 10y ago
        I agree. The term is showing up in article titles and such way more than usual. I hadnt heard it for maybe a year then suddenly every week or few days. Some fad going on...
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      On the topic of Torvalds, you only hear about him when he post a nastygram email because it makes for clickgrabbing headlines. But more often than not, he only do so when someone senior in the development chain screws up and thus he has to come in and make the final call. And likely the bickering has gone on for days if not weeks, and that part of the kernel has thus slowed to a halt because of it. Another problem is when politeness gets weaponized. This when people come in and try their outmost to rile up existing group members such that said members violate some rule or other.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >Like many other negative terms, it's only bikeshedding when "they" do it. It's only bikeshedding when it follows the historical and accepted definition of the term. Pointing out that a patch has a memory leak doesn't qualify, even if someone randomly calls this critique "bikeshedding". Pointing out some trivial aspect of the patch, on the other hand, would.
    - tedunangst 10y ago
      I stand corrected.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        Well, you do have a point (people can and probably do use the term as a weapon when it's not the case), but I think it's too general a point: people can (and probably do) do the same with any term.
      - valleyer 10y ago
        Beautiful.
  - MaulingMonkey 10y ago
    I tend to use the term to undermine the importance of my own feedback and to encourage action. E.g. when someone's agonizing over a choice: "I'd prefer X, but I think this is a bikeshed issue - just pick something and roll with it." This tends to include things which boil down to personal preference (coding standard whitespacing arguments, emacs vs vim, etc.), naming things (which can easily be renamed later with refactoring tools in static languages), and other minor self-contained decisions which can be easily changed at a later date.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 10y ago
  He is specifically talking about the author of the original e-mail who was a FeeBSD core member. They didn't change its meaning, they invented it with that meaning.

by suchow 10y ago

brandmeyer 10y ago

Not actually a riposte, more of an example of how an "in group" can lay claim to a term and change its meaning. In the original context, bikeshedding was the practice of the core maintainers micro-managing a change in what seems to be a dominance display. Mr. Glass's description is that the "in group" started using the term to denigrate outside engineers' small-but-useful improvements, in what also seems to be a dominance display.

tedunangst 10y ago
Like many other negative terms, it's only bikeshedding when "they" do it. "Here's an idiotic patch." No, this is a bad idea. It leaks memory like a sieve. "OMG, stop bikeshedding!"
- CodeMage 10y ago
  It would be interesting to see whether it really happened like that, but I'm sadly not interested enough to invest that much energy. I did try digging more into why PHK picked on Brett Glass specifically in his e-mail and I turned away from that endeavor in disgust after only 10 minutes. (For those who want to try themselves, go Google "brett glass politeness" as a starting point) It's actually very hard to get to the bottom of these things. Back when computers were the sole domain of us geeks and nerds, the culture of downright rudeness was a lot more widespread and tolerated than nowadays. The usual excuse was "content over form", meaning that if I say your patch is stupid because it leaks memory like a sieve, the important thing is that your patch leaks memory, not how you feel about my tone. Which is a reasonable justification when applied to a stupid patch, but turns into a bad excuse when people start calling each other names. Some of that culture lives on to this very day: we've all read more than one rant by Linus Torvalds where he cusses out someone who tried to submit something stupid to the kernel. Once you get over the fact that the language is uncalled for and that the same message could have been delivered with equal force without cussing, you can actually try to ascertain whether the message itself was deserved or not. In Linus's case, it usually seems deserved. Which brings me back to Brett Glass, who was indeed called names by PHK and others on the lists. Was that okay? I've already established that I don't think it was, but the real question is whether he "deserved" it, in the sense of whether he really was pissing off everyone on the list with bad ideas and whether there really were people calling for banning him or not. Like I already said, I don't know the answer, because I really do have better things to do today than wade through vitriol from the 90's. However, if you want to discuss Brett Glass, that's really the question you should be asking. Just because his post on Quora sounds reasonable and polite when compared to nerd-rage that was commonplace on the mailing lists -- the same kind of nerd-rage that would brand anyone as a "colossal douchebag" if used on public forums today -- it doesn't mean his claims were true. For my part, I would reserve my judgment. On the one hand, it's quite common for an entrenched group to exhibit behavior Glass accused them of. On the other hand, we're dealing with someone who's opposing the Net Neutrality for his personal gain. It's most likely that both sides were at fault, as it usually happens in sordid reality we live in.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    I meant more generally, not referring to a specific incident. Recently, as the term 'bikeshedding' has gained popularity, I'd say for every instance of bikeshedding I see, there's two occasions in which somebody tries to ram a bad patch through deflecting all criticism with accusations of bikeshedding.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      I agree. The term is showing up in article titles and such way more than usual. I hadnt heard it for maybe a year then suddenly every week or few days. Some fad going on...
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    On the topic of Torvalds, you only hear about him when he post a nastygram email because it makes for clickgrabbing headlines. But more often than not, he only do so when someone senior in the development chain screws up and thus he has to come in and make the final call. And likely the bickering has gone on for days if not weeks, and that part of the kernel has thus slowed to a halt because of it. Another problem is when politeness gets weaponized. This when people come in and try their outmost to rile up existing group members such that said members violate some rule or other.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Like many other negative terms, it's only bikeshedding when "they" do it. It's only bikeshedding when it follows the historical and accepted definition of the term. Pointing out that a patch has a memory leak doesn't qualify, even if someone randomly calls this critique "bikeshedding". Pointing out some trivial aspect of the patch, on the other hand, would.
  - tedunangst 10y ago
    I stand corrected.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Well, you do have a point (people can and probably do use the term as a weapon when it's not the case), but I think it's too general a point: people can (and probably do) do the same with any term.
    - valleyer 10y ago
      Beautiful.
- MaulingMonkey 10y ago
  I tend to use the term to undermine the importance of my own feedback and to encourage action. E.g. when someone's agonizing over a choice: "I'd prefer X, but I think this is a bikeshed issue - just pick something and roll with it." This tends to include things which boil down to personal preference (coding standard whitespacing arguments, emacs vs vim, etc.), naming things (which can easily be renamed later with refactoring tools in static languages), and other minor self-contained decisions which can be easily changed at a later date.
IfOnlyYouKnew 10y ago
He is specifically talking about the author of the original e-mail who was a FeeBSD core member. They didn't change its meaning, they invented it with that meaning.