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Sometimes "constructive" requires more effort, which for an engineer could mean "overhead". Especially if communication is text based (email, chat, etc.), it's

Sometimes "constructive" requires more effort, which for an engineer could mean "overhead". Especially if communication is text based (email, chat, etc.), it's more difficult to express your emotions. My imho of course.

simias 8y ago
As far as I can tell Linus's feedback is almost always constructive in that it generally points out precisely why he thinks something should or shouldn't that way. The problem is that he sometimes splices personal attacks and uses an overly aggressive tone which doesn't really help anything. I can somewhat justify using a very corrosive tone if you're not in a place of power and you want to be sure that you're not ignored (I'm not a fan of it but pragmatically it sometimes gets the job done). However it's clearly not the case here, he has the power to reject any contribution he doesn't fancy. And his developer clout is huge enough that he'd still be heard if he criticized third party projects he doesn't maintain. From a purely pragmatic point of view I don't see what his corrosive tone gets him. Actually I can easily see what it cost him, some devs have resigned from their maintainer position in the Linux kernel and probably many more who gave up contributing at all because they were worried they were going to be shot in flight.
- eropple 8y ago
  You are highlighting the false dichotomy that a lot of folks in this thread--and, if I'm being frank, not for good, decent, or ethical reasons--are piling in on. You can do something that makes people upset without being an asshole. It's really that simple. "No, I won't merge this pull request because of X, Y, and Z." Somebody's probably not going to be happy. But you have not needed to stoop to insulting them. You have not been an asshole. You have done your job, you have kept whatever level of high technical quality you care about. But you have not been an asshole. It is not hard to do both, and if you are but-forring Linus's decision to maybe be less of an asshole it's probably look-in-the-mirror time.
  - matz1 8y ago
    Is it better to train myself to not be affected with insult ? If some one say to me "No, you stupid pile of sheet, I won't merge this pull request because of X, Y, and Z." I'll just ignore the insult part or at very least to not let myself negatively affected and move on.
    - eropple 8y ago
      No, it's not. It is better to respond coolly to assholish behavior. But it is not better to allow it to remain unchallenged. Not challenging assholish behavior means that it becomes a community norm and is then incumbent upon everybody else to "train" themselves, as you say, to ignore the behavior of a minority of assholes. It hands the responsibility of defining what the culture is to those assholes. Letting the assholes normalize the culture is bad. It decreases uptake. It increases, even if people "train" themselves, the likelihood of burnout and of departure. And it makes the world, even if incrementally, a worse place.
      - matz1 8y ago
        Isn't is easier to change one person namely myself, rather than try to change one other person, let alone many? The culture and the world always evolving and changing, it can be worse or better or whatever, most importantly for me is how can I make myself adapt to the every situation and make the best of it.
        eropple 8y ago
        I don't care about "easier" and I don't think you should either. Why would "easier" be even on the radar? "Changing yourself" and letting rot fester is of little value to anyone. Be so mildly discomforted as to push back on other people's nasty behaviors and you make the world a better place. Do what is right.
        matz1 8y ago
        Because is practical, obviously changing myself to adapt to every situation has value for me, it makes a world a better place for me. what is right is relative, this is what I think Right.
- 08-15 8y ago
  > From a purely pragmatic point of view I don't see what his corrosive tone gets him. I don't know whether it actually, but I think Linus becomes "corrosive" to get rid of someone. Certain developers disappearing is not a side effect, it's the intended effect. If you have a "contributor" who keeps submitting the same faulty patch over and over, who doesn't listen, but keeps making a fuss about his "contribution" not being accepted, what can you do? You tell him that his code is no good and won't be accepted, and you tell him that his making a fuss about it is not welcome. But he doesn't stop, so now what? Block him from the mailing list? He just comes back with a new address. What's next? You decide to be so unpleasant to him that he leaves. Anecdotally, this sequence happened with certain engineers at Redhat, who kept dumping their bad code at Linus so that it may be maintained upstream. They could have cleaned it up, but that's exactly the maintenance cost Redhat wanted to outsource to the community.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    The problem is, it's not just the intended targets that go away with that behavior. A lot of spectators who see that decide they no longer wish to put themselves through that, and leave as well.
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
> Sometimes "constructive" requires more effort Not typing insults saves time. We are not talking about psychologist-grade emotional communication, just basic manners.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cblades 8y ago
No doubt, but we're people talking to other people. We can afford that overhead, and neglecting it incurs down-stream costs that can be unpredictable and significant.
UncleMeat 8y ago
It isn't overhead. It helps contributors improve.

simias 8y ago

As far as I can tell Linus's feedback is almost always constructive in that it generally points out precisely why he thinks something should or shouldn't that way. The problem is that he sometimes splices personal attacks and uses an overly aggressive tone which doesn't really help anything. I can somewhat justify using a very corrosive tone if you're not in a place of power and you want to be sure that you're not ignored (I'm not a fan of it but pragmatically it sometimes gets the job done). However it's clearly not the case here, he has the power to reject any contribution he doesn't fancy. And his developer clout is huge enough that he'd still be heard if he criticized third party projects he doesn't maintain. From a purely pragmatic point of view I don't see what his corrosive tone gets him. Actually I can easily see what it cost him, some devs have resigned from their maintainer position in the Linux kernel and probably many more who gave up contributing at all because they were worried they were going to be shot in flight.

eropple 8y ago
You are highlighting the false dichotomy that a lot of folks in this thread--and, if I'm being frank, not for good, decent, or ethical reasons--are piling in on. You can do something that makes people upset without being an asshole. It's really that simple. "No, I won't merge this pull request because of X, Y, and Z." Somebody's probably not going to be happy. But you have not needed to stoop to insulting them. You have not been an asshole. You have done your job, you have kept whatever level of high technical quality you care about. But you have not been an asshole. It is not hard to do both, and if you are but-forring Linus's decision to maybe be less of an asshole it's probably look-in-the-mirror time.
- matz1 8y ago
  Is it better to train myself to not be affected with insult ? If some one say to me "No, you stupid pile of sheet, I won't merge this pull request because of X, Y, and Z." I'll just ignore the insult part or at very least to not let myself negatively affected and move on.
  - eropple 8y ago
    No, it's not. It is better to respond coolly to assholish behavior. But it is not better to allow it to remain unchallenged. Not challenging assholish behavior means that it becomes a community norm and is then incumbent upon everybody else to "train" themselves, as you say, to ignore the behavior of a minority of assholes. It hands the responsibility of defining what the culture is to those assholes. Letting the assholes normalize the culture is bad. It decreases uptake. It increases, even if people "train" themselves, the likelihood of burnout and of departure. And it makes the world, even if incrementally, a worse place.
    - matz1 8y ago
      Isn't is easier to change one person namely myself, rather than try to change one other person, let alone many? The culture and the world always evolving and changing, it can be worse or better or whatever, most importantly for me is how can I make myself adapt to the every situation and make the best of it.
      - eropple 8y ago
        I don't care about "easier" and I don't think you should either. Why would "easier" be even on the radar? "Changing yourself" and letting rot fester is of little value to anyone. Be so mildly discomforted as to push back on other people's nasty behaviors and you make the world a better place. Do what is right.
        matz1 8y ago
        Because is practical, obviously changing myself to adapt to every situation has value for me, it makes a world a better place for me. what is right is relative, this is what I think Right.
08-15 8y ago
> From a purely pragmatic point of view I don't see what his corrosive tone gets him. I don't know whether it actually, but I think Linus becomes "corrosive" to get rid of someone. Certain developers disappearing is not a side effect, it's the intended effect. If you have a "contributor" who keeps submitting the same faulty patch over and over, who doesn't listen, but keeps making a fuss about his "contribution" not being accepted, what can you do? You tell him that his code is no good and won't be accepted, and you tell him that his making a fuss about it is not welcome. But he doesn't stop, so now what? Block him from the mailing list? He just comes back with a new address. What's next? You decide to be so unpleasant to him that he leaves. Anecdotally, this sequence happened with certain engineers at Redhat, who kept dumping their bad code at Linus so that it may be maintained upstream. They could have cleaned it up, but that's exactly the maintenance cost Redhat wanted to outsource to the community.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  The problem is, it's not just the intended targets that go away with that behavior. A lot of spectators who see that decide they no longer wish to put themselves through that, and leave as well.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

> Sometimes "constructive" requires more effort Not typing insults saves time. We are not talking about psychologist-grade emotional communication, just basic manners.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cblades 8y ago

No doubt, but we're people talking to other people. We can afford that overhead, and neglecting it incurs down-stream costs that can be unpredictable and significant.

UncleMeat 8y ago

It isn't overhead. It helps contributors improve.