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Is it their temperaments that lead them to success, or is it their willingness to never cave and always do what they feel is right? I'm not a fan of confrontat

by city41 9y ago

Is it their temperaments that lead them to success, or is it their willingness to never cave and always do what they feel is right? I'm not a fan of confrontation, and in the past have allowed features to get added to my projects that I didn't think was right. I regret it. Had I been willing to have some uncomfortable conversations, the project would have been better.

Nokinside 9y ago
It is said that every successful enterprise requires three men – a dreamer, a businessman, and a son-of-a-bitch. If you are starting on your own, you have to be all three.
iforgotpassword 9y ago
I think it is. I remember when in 2009, all over Germany (and Europe) students went on strike because they had several issues with how universities changed in the past years. Students occupied large parts of the campus and started to work out their demands. They decided to try and go by a grassroots democracy. Everything was discussed and reconciled with polls in the biggest lecture hall. The whole thing made big news, was on all TV channels, the nation waited for the students' demands, and they kept arguing, and discussing, and the nation kept waiting, and then they argued about the order of phrases, single words, as long as a single person had a complaint, and finally after half of the students involved gave up and no TV channel reported on the topic anymore, some final document was handed over that nobody remembers, just as nobody remembers the response to it. This is a pretty stark counter example, but to me it was a huge revelation to actually be part of this experience and see it fall into pieces. It shows that you simply can't always be nice to everyone and make it right for every single individual. Sometimes you have to be that asshole that leads the way and steps onto other people's feet, because a suboptimal decision made in time is often better than discussing every detail to death. A rough tone is simply (and unfortunately) an effective way to assert your position. Call it alpha male 2.0 or whatever. This realization also helped me dealing with that kind of person, not taking it too personal. As for Linus, I feel like these kind of rants are really an exception, he's either in normal/neutral mode, or goes all apeshit, which I think makes it rather easy to deal with him (never did so far though). In comparison, the passive arrogance that a certain developer of some init system sometimes shows seems much more annoying to deal with (also never had an interaction though).

by city41 9y ago

Nokinside 9y ago

It is said that every successful enterprise requires three men – a dreamer, a businessman, and a son-of-a-bitch. If you are starting on your own, you have to be all three.

iforgotpassword 9y ago

I think it is. I remember when in 2009, all over Germany (and Europe) students went on strike because they had several issues with how universities changed in the past years. Students occupied large parts of the campus and started to work out their demands. They decided to try and go by a grassroots democracy. Everything was discussed and reconciled with polls in the biggest lecture hall. The whole thing made big news, was on all TV channels, the nation waited for the students' demands, and they kept arguing, and discussing, and the nation kept waiting, and then they argued about the order of phrases, single words, as long as a single person had a complaint, and finally after half of the students involved gave up and no TV channel reported on the topic anymore, some final document was handed over that nobody remembers, just as nobody remembers the response to it. This is a pretty stark counter example, but to me it was a huge revelation to actually be part of this experience and see it fall into pieces. It shows that you simply can't always be nice to everyone and make it right for every single individual. Sometimes you have to be that asshole that leads the way and steps onto other people's feet, because a suboptimal decision made in time is often better than discussing every detail to death. A rough tone is simply (and unfortunately) an effective way to assert your position. Call it alpha male 2.0 or whatever. This realization also helped me dealing with that kind of person, not taking it too personal. As for Linus, I feel like these kind of rants are really an exception, he's either in normal/neutral mode, or goes all apeshit, which I think makes it rather easy to deal with him (never did so far though). In comparison, the passive arrogance that a certain developer of some init system sometimes shows seems much more annoying to deal with (also never had an interaction though).