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Reading these old Linus exchanges always has me in two minds. On the one hand, it's great to peer into the mind of a genius and see the thought process, but on

Reading these old Linus exchanges always has me in two minds. On the one hand, it's great to peer into the mind of a genius and see the thought process, but on the other - and in light of his stepping back after recognising his own highly unprofessional behaviour over the years - I wonder if we should repost and idolise these emails. Are people - especially young and impressionable developers - able to separate the two sides of the coin, or does it serve to plant a seed of normalisation for this kind of communication?

arka2147483647 8y ago
Linux kernel was also probably a lot smaller back then. Easier to reason about things when something goes wrong. Personally i think when projects grow, there is a point after which you cant really reason that much about what is going on, just have to debug it.
- merb 8y ago
  actually when the project is too big you can't debug it, you need to trace it.
- Err_Eek 8y ago
  Even then it was most likely still one of the most ample software projects on the planet
lsd5you 8y ago
I say make the world more interesting not less... People are adults and they can decide. To the extent that I agree that society 'needs to change' the most serious problems (abuse) are all things which have happened in private. It someone wants to be borish in public, everyone is aware, everyone can deal with it.
vkazanov 8y ago
When you say "genius" you mean his technical abilities, by "unprofessional" you probably mean those moments when he pointed out other people's technical mistakes in a... straightforward manner. Some people are offended by this other side of his style, yes. TBH, I don't understand why was it such a big deal. He never spoke about non-technical things in that way. Meanwhile, his technical opinions always were clear, sound and to the point.
- hyperpallium 8y ago
  You didn't think it was a problem, but he did.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    It's not like Linus coming to think it was a problem objectively makes it one.
- rovolo 8y ago
  I would argue against the "straightforward" part. I would call him a blunt rambler. Here's an example post where someone goes through a Linus email and rewrites it for clarity: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/blog/2018/a-case-study-in-not-being-a-jerk-in-open-source https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/blog/2018/a-case-study-in... > This is a much better email. It has 43% as many words, but loses none of the meaning. It's still forceful and unambiguous. With fewer words, it's easier for someone to absorb the core message about unthinking deference to standards. > It also doesn't berate anyone, building a needlessly antagonistic culture around the project. Writing this email instead of the original email doesn't require any extra work, and will save mileage on Linus' (or your) fingers besides. Author commentary: https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/1009844030656561153?lang=en https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/1009844030656561153... > If you read apologists commenting about this email, they often completely miss Linus' actual point. He's fine with the change; he doesn't like the justification, which uses an appeal to authority. The very people who apologize for the useless bloat miss this because of the bloat! > These people missed the signal because it was buried in noise. But most of them go on to argue that the noise is boosting the signal; that ranting is good because it drives the point home. But they didn't even detect the signal because they were so focused on defending the noise!
enriquto 8y ago
> Are people - especially young and impressionable developers - able to separate the two sides of the coin As a young coder, I remember reading these linus oldtime posts as an exhilarating breath of fresh air. Everyone around me was all-in about "object orientation" and similar bullshit. When I say everyone I mean it: there was not a single person that suggested even a hint of hypothetical disagreement on software engineering mantra. Thus, it was refreshing to read these posts and realize that there existed, after all, another side of the coin. We should not be afraid that young and impressionable people see "all sides of the coin". We should be afraid that they only get to see one side.
- vkazanov 8y ago
  I don't really know if 33 is young or old but I really cannot agree more about the mantra thing. And it's not only the OOP craze that completely ate the industry at some point..! NoSQL-related discussions, all UIs and CLIs, the big enterprise influences vs open source approaches, etc.
  - Cthulhu_ 8y ago
    It's easy to echo who you perceive as smart people; it's harder to have your own opinions, and be at a level where you can defend them in a satisfactory way. Somehow, the Go language is doing it, eschewing traditional OOP in favor of a get shit done fast and a little dirty approach. It's not even because of the charm of an individual either. Then again, before Go there was JS as the big opponent to rigid OOP. I still don't understand why they felt like they had to add half-baked classes / OOP to it.
    - vkazanov 8y ago
      I always strongly disliked the OOP school of program design, even though I learned to parrot everything required by one's typical interview process. Keeping data and functions together can be nice. In some rare cases inheritance is almost OK. But still don't understand how it all went nuts and they started writing, say, parsers in that style... But it's always nice to hear that there are other people having similar opinions. Especially if it's people like Linus.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
z3t4 8y ago
What's wrong with Linus communication in this post ? Someone asked for his opinion. Not only did he respond with his opinion, he also clearly communicated why he holds that opinion. Sure he has written some abusive stuff, but that doesn't make everything else abusive, or can you point out the abusive parts in this post ?
chrisseaton 8y ago
I don't think anyone else is idolising this kind of toxic behaviour. You're the one calling it 'genius'! I think it's an absolutely terrible way to speak to people and I hope I never have to interact with him to get something done in my job. I don't know how a professional person can be happy with knowing there are people who would avoid them like that.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I don't know how a professional person can be happy with knowing there are people who would avoid them like that. Well, they know there are hundreds of millions of others who use their work, thousands who worked with them, and a trillion dollar industry built on their labor and effort, and that they have spoken their mind, with no BS, and no fake niceties like it's the norm. I guess they can always take comfort in that.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    They must be different to me - I'd feel really bad if I knew the way I spoke to people made them not want to talk to me.
    - coldtea 8y ago
      Some don't want to be people pleasers in general. They'd rather break bridges that censor themselves and be less blunt. Others don't want certain kinds of people to "want to talk to them" in the first place, so they are non-polite towards their kind on purpose. And a final similar case is wanting people to talk to you only if they can stand that level of discussion/no BS talk/bluntness/sense of humor/profanity/etc. So that you can be yourself among them, and they can be themselves with you, with no facades.
- enriquto 8y ago
  > I think it's an absolutely terrible way to speak to people I, for one, pretty much prefer being spoken to that way, instead of a sanitized corporate newspeak that means exactly the same thing but uses "professional" words.
nurettin 8y ago
Yes, let us hide old posts from public until candidness and frankness (driving forces of innovation and self-correction) is completely obliterated from the corporate world. And let us also gently place everyone's thumbs into their mouths while they are asleep because it feels cute and cuddly.
- cuddlecake 8y ago
  Your sarcastic comment is absolute trash.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    That felt nice, didn't it?
  - Toutou 8y ago
    Yet I can't agree more with it.
  - nurettin 8y ago
    I really like your nickname.
  - cuddlecake 8y ago
    I just wanted to drive home the fact that we don't accept insults, and respectable discourse is always preferred. I would not accept shit from people just because they have some authority in some place.
coldtea 8y ago
>and in light of his stepping back after recognising his own highly unprofessional behaviour over the years - I wonder if we should repost and idolise these emails. I'd say we should. For me his apologizing was more cringe worthy than anything in these emails. Basically caving in to the American (and some Europeans by mimicry) culture of and "shame! shame! shame!"-style demand for public apologies. We need more people standing up to what they see as BS in tech. And if the use strong language doing it, that's in a great tradition too. >Are people - especially young and impressionable developers - able to separate the two sides of the coin, or does it serve to plant a seed of normalisation for this kind of communication? Yeah, as if we suffer from too much candor and strong words in today's tech landscape.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  There are ways of providing feedback without frequent profanities.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    And there are condiments other than mustard. So what?
    - saagarjha 8y ago
      Some of them happen to achieve similar effects in a more pleasant way.
      - darkpuma 8y ago
        Your condiment preferences are subjective, and your campaigning against mustard threatens to make the world a blander place.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Yes, but the profanities make it so much better. It's more colorful. It drives the point harder. It's also more healthy and the evolutionary smart thing to do: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/science-swearing-profanity-curse-emma-byrne/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/science-swearing... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-swearing-180967874/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-sweari... https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/swearing-is-surprisingly-good-for-your-brain-according-to-science.html https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/swearing-is-surprisingly-go... https://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-swearing-cursing-rude-words-better-vocabulary-science https://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-swearing-cursing-rud... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/smarter-living/the-case-for-cursing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/smarter-living/the-case-f... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/hell-yes-the-7-best-reasons-swearing https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205... https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/science-swearing-profanity-curse-emma-byrne/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/science-swearing... Fuck yeah!
aerique 8y ago
Does your comment also apply to this specific e-mail? I just read it and it seems pretty tame to me. It's direct but if people get offended by this these days, by gods, we have a problem. Sometimes growing a thicker skin is the answer, one can't put the burden all on the messenger. I mean, there's some Linus e-mails (and also Erik Naggum posts on Usenet) that I thought were awesome when I was young and impressionable but that I now think are over the line. But this specific example, if that's not possible... phew.) (I also get the impression some commenters here do not realize what "fsck" refers to.)
- rovolo 8y ago
  The problem I see with it is that Linus doesn't leave any room for someone to disagree with him. Specifically: > Oh. And sure, when things crash and you fsck and you didn't even get a clue about what went wrong, you get frustrated. Tough. There are two kinds of reactions to that: you start being careful, or you start whining about a kernel debugger. > Quite frankly, I'd rather weed out the people who don't start being careful early rather than late. That sounds callous, and by God, it _is_ callous. But it's not the kind of "if you can't stand the heat, get out the the kitchen" kind of remark that some people take it for. No, it's something much more deeper: I'd rather not work with people who aren't careful. It's darwinism in software development. > It's a cold, callous argument that says that there are two kinds of people, and I'd rather not work with the second kind. Live with it. True, he's not using profanity, but his words boil down to "People who introduce a crash and want to use a debugger to find out what's going on are not careful developers. Careful developers would not introduce a crash in the first place. If you cause a crash while developing on the kernel, you are not welcome to develop on the kernel." It's impossible to argue that a debugger would be helpful because Linus will label you as a careless developer. Eventually he gets around to the actual reason he doesn't like debuggers, but he spent the first 2/3 of the email just belittling people who use debuggers. > I happen to believe that not having a kernel debugger forces people to think about their problem on a different level than with a debugger. I think that without a debugger, you don't get into that mindset where you know how it behaves, and then you fix it from there. Without a debugger, you tend to think about problems another way. You want to understand things on a different _level_. > And quite frankly, for most of the real problems (as opposed to the stupid bugs - of which there are many, as the latest crap with "truncate()" has shown us) a debugger doesn't much help. And the real problems are what I worry about. The rest is just details. It will get fixed eventually. Only after the last 1/3 of the email do you have enough information to craft a response to Linus to argue why a debugger would be helpful.
Xelbair 8y ago
I read quite a lot of Linus emails, and honestly, he was harsh, but he was always constructive. As a younger developer - what matters to me most is the constructive criticism. I don't want to have it phrased nicer(nor harsher) than needed - i just want it to be down to earth and constructive.

arka2147483647 8y ago

Linux kernel was also probably a lot smaller back then. Easier to reason about things when something goes wrong. Personally i think when projects grow, there is a point after which you cant really reason that much about what is going on, just have to debug it.

merb 8y ago
actually when the project is too big you can't debug it, you need to trace it.
Err_Eek 8y ago
Even then it was most likely still one of the most ample software projects on the planet

lsd5you 8y ago

I say make the world more interesting not less... People are adults and they can decide. To the extent that I agree that society 'needs to change' the most serious problems (abuse) are all things which have happened in private. It someone wants to be borish in public, everyone is aware, everyone can deal with it.

vkazanov 8y ago

When you say "genius" you mean his technical abilities, by "unprofessional" you probably mean those moments when he pointed out other people's technical mistakes in a... straightforward manner. Some people are offended by this other side of his style, yes. TBH, I don't understand why was it such a big deal. He never spoke about non-technical things in that way. Meanwhile, his technical opinions always were clear, sound and to the point.

hyperpallium 8y ago
You didn't think it was a problem, but he did.
- coldtea 8y ago
  It's not like Linus coming to think it was a problem objectively makes it one.
rovolo 8y ago
I would argue against the "straightforward" part. I would call him a blunt rambler. Here's an example post where someone goes through a Linus email and rewrites it for clarity: https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/blog/2018/a-case-study-in-not-being-a-jerk-in-open-source https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/blog/2018/a-case-study-in... > This is a much better email. It has 43% as many words, but loses none of the meaning. It's still forceful and unambiguous. With fewer words, it's easier for someone to absorb the core message about unthinking deference to standards. > It also doesn't berate anyone, building a needlessly antagonistic culture around the project. Writing this email instead of the original email doesn't require any extra work, and will save mileage on Linus' (or your) fingers besides. Author commentary: https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/1009844030656561153?lang=en https://twitter.com/garybernhardt/status/1009844030656561153... > If you read apologists commenting about this email, they often completely miss Linus' actual point. He's fine with the change; he doesn't like the justification, which uses an appeal to authority. The very people who apologize for the useless bloat miss this because of the bloat! > These people missed the signal because it was buried in noise. But most of them go on to argue that the noise is boosting the signal; that ranting is good because it drives the point home. But they didn't even detect the signal because they were so focused on defending the noise!

enriquto 8y ago

> Are people - especially young and impressionable developers - able to separate the two sides of the coin As a young coder, I remember reading these linus oldtime posts as an exhilarating breath of fresh air. Everyone around me was all-in about "object orientation" and similar bullshit. When I say everyone I mean it: there was not a single person that suggested even a hint of hypothetical disagreement on software engineering mantra. Thus, it was refreshing to read these posts and realize that there existed, after all, another side of the coin. We should not be afraid that young and impressionable people see "all sides of the coin". We should be afraid that they only get to see one side.

vkazanov 8y ago
I don't really know if 33 is young or old but I really cannot agree more about the mantra thing. And it's not only the OOP craze that completely ate the industry at some point..! NoSQL-related discussions, all UIs and CLIs, the big enterprise influences vs open source approaches, etc.
- Cthulhu_ 8y ago
  It's easy to echo who you perceive as smart people; it's harder to have your own opinions, and be at a level where you can defend them in a satisfactory way. Somehow, the Go language is doing it, eschewing traditional OOP in favor of a get shit done fast and a little dirty approach. It's not even because of the charm of an individual either. Then again, before Go there was JS as the big opponent to rigid OOP. I still don't understand why they felt like they had to add half-baked classes / OOP to it.
  - vkazanov 8y ago
    I always strongly disliked the OOP school of program design, even though I learned to parrot everything required by one's typical interview process. Keeping data and functions together can be nice. In some rare cases inheritance is almost OK. But still don't understand how it all went nuts and they started writing, say, parsers in that style... But it's always nice to hear that there are other people having similar opinions. Especially if it's people like Linus.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

z3t4 8y ago

What's wrong with Linus communication in this post ? Someone asked for his opinion. Not only did he respond with his opinion, he also clearly communicated why he holds that opinion. Sure he has written some abusive stuff, but that doesn't make everything else abusive, or can you point out the abusive parts in this post ?

chrisseaton 8y ago

I don't think anyone else is idolising this kind of toxic behaviour. You're the one calling it 'genius'! I think it's an absolutely terrible way to speak to people and I hope I never have to interact with him to get something done in my job. I don't know how a professional person can be happy with knowing there are people who would avoid them like that.

coldtea 8y ago
>I don't know how a professional person can be happy with knowing there are people who would avoid them like that. Well, they know there are hundreds of millions of others who use their work, thousands who worked with them, and a trillion dollar industry built on their labor and effort, and that they have spoken their mind, with no BS, and no fake niceties like it's the norm. I guess they can always take comfort in that.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  They must be different to me - I'd feel really bad if I knew the way I spoke to people made them not want to talk to me.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    Some don't want to be people pleasers in general. They'd rather break bridges that censor themselves and be less blunt. Others don't want certain kinds of people to "want to talk to them" in the first place, so they are non-polite towards their kind on purpose. And a final similar case is wanting people to talk to you only if they can stand that level of discussion/no BS talk/bluntness/sense of humor/profanity/etc. So that you can be yourself among them, and they can be themselves with you, with no facades.
enriquto 8y ago
> I think it's an absolutely terrible way to speak to people I, for one, pretty much prefer being spoken to that way, instead of a sanitized corporate newspeak that means exactly the same thing but uses "professional" words.

nurettin 8y ago

Yes, let us hide old posts from public until candidness and frankness (driving forces of innovation and self-correction) is completely obliterated from the corporate world. And let us also gently place everyone's thumbs into their mouths while they are asleep because it feels cute and cuddly.

cuddlecake 8y ago
Your sarcastic comment is absolute trash.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  That felt nice, didn't it?
- Toutou 8y ago
  Yet I can't agree more with it.
- nurettin 8y ago
  I really like your nickname.
- cuddlecake 8y ago
  I just wanted to drive home the fact that we don't accept insults, and respectable discourse is always preferred. I would not accept shit from people just because they have some authority in some place.

coldtea 8y ago

>and in light of his stepping back after recognising his own highly unprofessional behaviour over the years - I wonder if we should repost and idolise these emails. I'd say we should. For me his apologizing was more cringe worthy than anything in these emails. Basically caving in to the American (and some Europeans by mimicry) culture of and "shame! shame! shame!"-style demand for public apologies. We need more people standing up to what they see as BS in tech. And if the use strong language doing it, that's in a great tradition too. >Are people - especially young and impressionable developers - able to separate the two sides of the coin, or does it serve to plant a seed of normalisation for this kind of communication? Yeah, as if we suffer from too much candor and strong words in today's tech landscape.

saagarjha 8y ago
There are ways of providing feedback without frequent profanities.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  And there are condiments other than mustard. So what?
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Some of them happen to achieve similar effects in a more pleasant way.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      Your condiment preferences are subjective, and your campaigning against mustard threatens to make the world a blander place.
- coldtea 8y ago
  Yes, but the profanities make it so much better. It's more colorful. It drives the point harder. It's also more healthy and the evolutionary smart thing to do: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/science-swearing-profanity-curse-emma-byrne/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/science-swearing... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-swearing-180967874/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/science-sweari... https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/swearing-is-surprisingly-good-for-your-brain-according-to-science.html https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/swearing-is-surprisingly-go... https://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-swearing-cursing-rude-words-better-vocabulary-science https://www.sciencealert.com/people-who-swearing-cursing-rud... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/smarter-living/the-case-for-cursing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/smarter-living/the-case-f... https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/hell-yes-the-7-best-reasons-swearing https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205... https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/science-swearing-profanity-curse-emma-byrne/ https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/science-swearing... Fuck yeah!

aerique 8y ago

Does your comment also apply to this specific e-mail? I just read it and it seems pretty tame to me. It's direct but if people get offended by this these days, by gods, we have a problem. Sometimes growing a thicker skin is the answer, one can't put the burden all on the messenger. I mean, there's some Linus e-mails (and also Erik Naggum posts on Usenet) that I thought were awesome when I was young and impressionable but that I now think are over the line. But this specific example, if that's not possible... phew.) (I also get the impression some commenters here do not realize what "fsck" refers to.)

rovolo 8y ago
The problem I see with it is that Linus doesn't leave any room for someone to disagree with him. Specifically: > Oh. And sure, when things crash and you fsck and you didn't even get a clue about what went wrong, you get frustrated. Tough. There are two kinds of reactions to that: you start being careful, or you start whining about a kernel debugger. > Quite frankly, I'd rather weed out the people who don't start being careful early rather than late. That sounds callous, and by God, it _is_ callous. But it's not the kind of "if you can't stand the heat, get out the the kitchen" kind of remark that some people take it for. No, it's something much more deeper: I'd rather not work with people who aren't careful. It's darwinism in software development. > It's a cold, callous argument that says that there are two kinds of people, and I'd rather not work with the second kind. Live with it. True, he's not using profanity, but his words boil down to "People who introduce a crash and want to use a debugger to find out what's going on are not careful developers. Careful developers would not introduce a crash in the first place. If you cause a crash while developing on the kernel, you are not welcome to develop on the kernel." It's impossible to argue that a debugger would be helpful because Linus will label you as a careless developer. Eventually he gets around to the actual reason he doesn't like debuggers, but he spent the first 2/3 of the email just belittling people who use debuggers. > I happen to believe that not having a kernel debugger forces people to think about their problem on a different level than with a debugger. I think that without a debugger, you don't get into that mindset where you know how it behaves, and then you fix it from there. Without a debugger, you tend to think about problems another way. You want to understand things on a different _level_. > And quite frankly, for most of the real problems (as opposed to the stupid bugs - of which there are many, as the latest crap with "truncate()" has shown us) a debugger doesn't much help. And the real problems are what I worry about. The rest is just details. It will get fixed eventually. Only after the last 1/3 of the email do you have enough information to craft a response to Linus to argue why a debugger would be helpful.

Xelbair 8y ago

I read quite a lot of Linus emails, and honestly, he was harsh, but he was always constructive. As a younger developer - what matters to me most is the constructive criticism. I don't want to have it phrased nicer(nor harsher) than needed - i just want it to be down to earth and constructive.