7 ms·

Linus really does write beautifully. Love his style, concise, easily readable, frank, honest with nice human touches.

by abraae 6y ago

kelnos 6y ago
That email was many things, but concise is definitely not one of them.
- RegW 6y ago
  ... but remarkably good humoured! (Or are those teeth gritted?:-)
  - OskarS 6y ago
    I thought so too! Linus was even like "don't blame the developers, this one was particularly nasty" and everything! Good to see nice and sensible Linus once in a while!
hjek 6y ago
> So I'm not blaming the developers in question, Much kinder than past Linus writings. I loved it too. "Double ungood" works at least as good as the swearing.
- rob74 6y ago
  For anyone who didn't recognize it, that's a reference to Orwell's Newspeak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak). Which makes me wonder about two things: - is Linus hinting that he is censoring himself, and if he wasn't, what expression would he have used instead? - for what kind of incident does he reserve the attribute "double plus ungood"? Probably if such a bug would get into the production kernel?
  - jlgaddis 6y ago
    > ... if he wasn't, what expression would he have used instead? My first guess would be something that includes the word "fuck"... but, on second thought, this isn't Nvidia -- so perhaps not.
  - matthewmacleod 6y ago
    You’re reading way too much into it - it’s just a colourful expression. Anyway, “double ungood” would not be a valid Newspeak construction. The base is “good” and “ungood” is the negation; intensification would be “plusungood” and further intensification “doubleplusungood”.
- speeder 6y ago
  In my view seeing him writing double ungood worries me. Don't need to swear, but he could have written "very bad" or something like that.
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  I can recall a colleague, many years ago, sometimes using "doubleplusungood", often shortened -- in (typical lazy UNIX admin style -- to just ++ungood Later, another cow-orker tried using a slight variant ... ++!good ... although that one never really caught on -- apparently it didn't compile or something (maybe because we were using Red Hat's version "2.96" of gcc at the time?). -- (+10 Internet points if you get the reference(s))
  - rob74 6y ago
    Oops, sorry for giving it away in my comment ;)
    - jlgaddis 6y ago
      It's okay, that's not the only one!
  - kps 6y ago
    ++ can't operate on !good because it's not an lvalue (i.e. not assignable). typedef double winston; winston smith(int good) { return (double)+!good; }
- fractalb 6y ago
  I think that the word ‘Double ungood’ was generated by his auto correction program which automatically replaces all the swear words with some less offensive words

Linus really does write beautifully. Love his style, concise, easily readable, frank, honest with nice human touches.

by abraae 6y ago

Linus really does write beautifully. Love his style, concise, easily readable, frank, honest with nice human touches.

kelnos 6y ago

That email was many things, but concise is definitely not one of them.

RegW 6y ago
... but remarkably good humoured! (Or are those teeth gritted?:-)
- OskarS 6y ago
  I thought so too! Linus was even like "don't blame the developers, this one was particularly nasty" and everything! Good to see nice and sensible Linus once in a while!

hjek 6y ago

> So I'm not blaming the developers in question, Much kinder than past Linus writings. I loved it too. "Double ungood" works at least as good as the swearing.

rob74 6y ago
For anyone who didn't recognize it, that's a reference to Orwell's Newspeak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak). Which makes me wonder about two things: - is Linus hinting that he is censoring himself, and if he wasn't, what expression would he have used instead? - for what kind of incident does he reserve the attribute "double plus ungood"? Probably if such a bug would get into the production kernel?
- jlgaddis 6y ago
  > ... if he wasn't, what expression would he have used instead? My first guess would be something that includes the word "fuck"... but, on second thought, this isn't Nvidia -- so perhaps not.
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  You’re reading way too much into it - it’s just a colourful expression. Anyway, “double ungood” would not be a valid Newspeak construction. The base is “good” and “ungood” is the negation; intensification would be “plusungood” and further intensification “doubleplusungood”.
speeder 6y ago
In my view seeing him writing double ungood worries me. Don't need to swear, but he could have written "very bad" or something like that.
jlgaddis 6y ago
I can recall a colleague, many years ago, sometimes using "doubleplusungood", often shortened -- in (typical lazy UNIX admin style -- to just ++ungood Later, another cow-orker tried using a slight variant ... ++!good ... although that one never really caught on -- apparently it didn't compile or something (maybe because we were using Red Hat's version "2.96" of gcc at the time?). -- (+10 Internet points if you get the reference(s))
- rob74 6y ago
  Oops, sorry for giving it away in my comment ;)
  - jlgaddis 6y ago
    It's okay, that's not the only one!
- kps 6y ago
  ++ can't operate on !good because it's not an lvalue (i.e. not assignable). typedef double winston; winston smith(int good) { return (double)+!good; }
fractalb 6y ago
I think that the word ‘Double ungood’ was generated by his auto correction program which automatically replaces all the swear words with some less offensive words