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Most of Torvalds emails are not like this. In fact most of them are like you say, he explains his thoughts in a sensible manner. It's just when people play with
by nodja 9y ago
Most of Torvalds emails are not like this. In fact most of them are like you say, he explains his thoughts in a sensible manner. It's just when people play with fire that the lid comes of and makes the headlines.
A sensible mail discussing the details of some obscure technicality doesn't make HN frontpage.
- rtpg 9y agoEven if it's just once a month... I think very few teams would be able to deal with a co-worker with such violent outbursts. Ok he's mad. We all get mad. I've never said someone should have been aborted, no matter how mad I get. He has, over a ... A diff. Perhaps he has some difficulties, like some of us do. Has he ever acknowledged his attitude in any way?
- nodja 9y ago> Has he ever acknowledged his attitude in any way? Yes. > I don't know where you happen to be based, but this 'you have to be nice' seems to be very popular in the US. > The same way we have developers and marketing people and legal people who speak different languages, I think we can have some developers who are used to—and prefer—a more confrontational style, and still also have people who don't, > Maybe it's just because I like arguing," Torvalds added. "I'm just not a huge believer in politeness and sensitivity being preferable over bluntly letting people know your feelings. But I also understand that other people are driven away by cursing and crass language when it all gets a bit too carried away. Source: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/linus-torvalds-responds-to-ars-about-diversity-niceness-in-open-source/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/linus...
- treis 9y agoCalling people morons isn't being confrontational. It's being an asshole.
- hutzlibu 9y agoDepends. If people are morons, you can call them like that and not be an asshole, just honest. Don't know about this case, though ...
- rtpg 9y agoEven being right, you can still be a jerk. Though being wrong and a jerk is definitely worse in a sense, personally I think that attitudes that qualify you as being a jerk only marginally help you in being honest. The basic idea is that even if someone is a moron, calling them a moron isn't really.... doing much. Very little information, and a lot of rudeness. Telling them that their patch isn't mergable has more info and less raw rudeness IMO
- sjwright 9y agoThat's your opinion. Others would say the greater asshole is one who refuses to confront morons with their own moronic behaviour. That person is denying the moron opportunity to self-reflect and improve themselves. And before you interject, I would also assert that numbing the confrontation with "civility" also nullifies the effect.
- ksec 9y agoI think that is important to note as well. His email normally gets the attention when he is pissed off. But the majority of them aren't. It shows how angry he is, and how he is upset with the issues. While this could be avoided in a real world scenario, I would have bet if your manager feel something strongly about, they would have went rampant as well. And this is especially in remote working, words are hard to get feeling across without putting some "adjectives" into it.