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I don't treat people the same way, but I appreciate the blunt honesty. If we're having a few drinks as friends and you tell me that I'm an idiot, of course I wi
by zamalek 8y ago
I don't treat people the same way, but I appreciate the blunt honesty. If we're having a few drinks as friends and you tell me that I'm an idiot, of course I will take that personally; however, tell me that as a developer and I'm motivated.
So far as that goes, my mind works the same as Linus. I err on the side of praise, which makes me different - although my lack of praise for some individuals probably speaks as loud as Linus' vitriol. Your ability is not a reflection of your character, i.e. "you are not your code."
I have no interest in maintaining Linux, maybe I would 20 years prior to now when choices were generally more than "drivers." That being said, Linus would make an excellent mentor for those who can separate their code and themselves.
He is an artisan, in the most classical sense. Every one of his maintainers is an apprentice. It's an incredibly unpopular perspective to have - but the epitome of professional decorum is to attack a person's work without attacking their life.
Smart people are able to discern the difference between their work (which is fallible) and themselves (which is infallible). I am a great developer, but the fact that even better ones exist is inspiring and I'd hope they would tell me what I'm doing wrong.
My assignment for the next N sprints is to clue up employees on debugging prod. I will destroy that assignment but, hell, I would prefer to work with people who cared enough to research it themselves; as I did.
- matwood 8y ago> but I appreciate the blunt honesty. There is a difference between blunt honesty and being rude. Honesty is pointing out that you're not pulling your weight, or how you did something was incorrect and not up to the teams standards. Rude is calling you names or otherwise insulting you. The insults also often lack any reference to the issue. Telling someone they are an idiot does nothing for that person or the team.
- tomp 8y agoWhat are some examples of him insulting people (as opposed to their work/code)?
- _arvin 8y agoWe’ll be here all day. He would associate the code to the person, which goes against the “I am not my code.” that many adhere to. Linus is stepping up and finally owning up to his behavior. We owe him a lot so we gave him a pass before. Now we won’t hopefully need to anymore. To be fair, he has incredible judgment and we defer to him when it comes to being the road block to merging bad code.
- DoreenMichele 8y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18001144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18001144 He doesn't seem to hesitate to get extremely personal.
- lucio 8y agoThe more exaggerated the cursing, the more problematic is the subject according to Linus. Linus' over the top cursing is a means to transmit his evaluation of how problematic some code is. It's never personal. Show me an instance where his cursing is not related to kernel code.
- BeetleB 8y ago>Show me an instance where his cursing is not related to kernel code. I think I and many others are reading your statement as: "Hey, as long as the person wrote horrible code, it's OK to call the coder anything we want". The whole discussion isn't about how he behaves outside the kernel development. It's about how he behaves within that context.
- lucio 8y agoThe key here is not to take the cursing personally. He's cursing the code not the coder. He don't hate specific persons. He can curse you on one not-so-good patch and praise you on another. The anger it's not directed at the person.
- 8y ago
- jack9 8y ago> however, tell me that as a developer and I'm motivated. I'm not sure why it would be any different. Just because I make a mistake (sometimes leading to a chain of mistakes) doesn't solely make me an idiot.