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Do you think Linus would get a maximally friendly reception if he said: > You clearly mean well. Your heart is in the right place. Thank you so much for all yo
by Kalium 9y ago
Do you think Linus would get a maximally friendly reception if he said:
> You clearly mean well. Your heart is in the right place. Thank you so much for all your hard work. There's this weird thing going on where it seems like a bunch of patches experiencing opportunity for improvement are being pushed. These patches also could maybe be better explained.
> I don't understand. Can you help me understand, so we can fix our problems together? Again, thank you so much for your hard work!
And, incidentally, does the above not just drip insincerity to you? It does to me, and I know how powerful the Dale Carnegie-esqe "complement sandwich" approach is.
Linus is justifiably angry at someone screwing with code he is responsible for in ridiculous ways, without any real explanation of why a ridiculous approach was chosen. He's maybe a smidge less than fully satisfied with either point. The person in question really should know better on all points.
- phyzome 9y agoYou and I both know there's a (large) middle ground.
- Kalium 9y agoThank you for saying so and well spotted! You're absolutely right. There is very much a large middle ground. Is it possible that a middle ground of politely offering carefully tempered criticism might exist? It certainly does! Is it possible that it could potentially lack the same impact as the approach Linus used? This strikes me as also possible. My experience to date is that polite criticism carefully wrapped to avoid being upsetting in any way to someone emotionally invested in their work is often not received with the intended level of urgency. I'm sure that's just my total ignorance and lack of social graces. Can you please help me understand better?
- killaken2000 9y agoTo me you'd get a better response from Linus if your patch wasn't some corporate garbage with ulterior motives. If the person who posted the patch had actually offered a solution that wasn't a pile of crap then there could be a dialog regarding ways to improve.
- Sean1708 9y agoIn my experience being aggressive or patronising tends to cause people to become combative which in turn makes them (subconsciously or otherwise) less likely to actually understand the point you're trying to make and more likely to waste time trying to convince you of their point. I find that presenting your case in a calm and relatively neutral way (note not "wrapped to avoid being upsetting in any way ...", that's a false dichotomy in my opinion) tends to be the most effective approach overall.
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- ktta 9y agoLike it or not, the common expectation is moving towards what you (sarcastically) wrote, and already much farther away than where Linus is at here. Linus gets away with it because he's Linus. And surprisingly, I hear even he has toned down a bit.
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