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I'm surprised by so many people taking offense at it. Very direct and to the point, it's great. People have become so fragile in the last decade or so. It's pa

I'm surprised by so many people taking offense at it. Very direct and to the point, it's great. People have become so fragile in the last decade or so. It's pathetic.

ranguna 3y ago
Offended? Sorry my message must've hit a traumatic chord on your brain, but I didn't say I was offended, just that it was aggressive. Like watching wwa show, it's aggressive, but entertaining. Please try to not project your thinking too much next time you read someone else's comment next time.
endisneigh 3y ago
The exact same points could’ve been made in a nicer fashion. Needlessly aggressive language imo. Would you speak to your teammates this way? Your child?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- withinboredom 3y ago
  Yes. We need more pointing out when people do idiotic things, not less. Otherwise, in a few generations, we'll be wondering why you would water plants with toilet water.
  - dustyleary 3y ago
    Is it possible to point out that you disagree with something without being rude or aggressive in speech?
    - withinboredom 3y ago
      How was he rude or aggressive? He just said what he saw: shit code he'd have to maintain and he clearly didn't want to.
- josefx 3y ago
  > Your child? Note: treat Google engineers like literal toddlers.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    Why do you believe children equates to toddlers?
    - josefx 3y ago
      As far as I can tell it at least doesn't exclude it. Edit: Treating someone like a child is probably demeaning enough either way.
- noirscape 3y ago
  No, but that's not the relationship between Google employees and the kernel either. Google is functionally a third party vendor submitting their own solution for a technical problem the Chromium team wants fixed by changes to the kernel. That's the lens through which the response should be seen imo. Google isn't a coworker, a teammate or a friend in this situation. They're a third party entirely.
  - endisneigh 3y ago
    So what? Third parties should be treated respectfully, or do you disagree?
    - noirscape 3y ago
      Certainly. That said, I do think that Linus Torvalds is treating the Google employee respectfully here, given the dynamics and context at play. Firstly: Torvalds does not owe Google anything beyond basic respect for sending him a patch; they don't pay his wages, nor does the LKML have Google as a business customer (Google does donate to the LF but only 3% of the LFs actual funding goes to kernel development and therefore Torvalds' wages). That basic respect is given - Torvalds does not insult or demean the submitters technical skills, merely the implementation they ended up going with. Secondly: As far as I can tell, this proposal was brought forward straight up with an implementation, rather than consulting beforehand with the Mailing List on if this is a good idea and what such a contribution would look like in the context of the kernel (given that the implementation isn't a bugfix). Especially for more "mature"/"large" projects, dumping patch proposals that add maintenance overhead as a form of "discussion" as a submission tends to be seen as a hostile move. This is just general FOSS good behavior and from what I can tell this patch went through Googles internal discussion lists rather than the LKML. Google, perhaps to some suprise, does not own the LKML. The rudeness in that regard is mutual and was arguably started by the patch being submitted in that manner to begin with. (Something which is indicated further in the thread by the fact that the author attempted to start a new patch series for their proposal rather than discuss the feedback they got, showcasing they have little care for actually working with the LKML to get the patch merged). Thirdly: I frankly... just don't think this feedback is that harsh in the light of that dynamic? Sure, some of it uses strong language but I've been on the receiving end of way worse from university teachers and the like. "This is a fundamentally bad implementation that doesn't follow LKML guidelines, but I like the idea" is what a lot of it comes down to. Calling something bad is not a mortal sin; if it sucks it just... sucks. The specifics of how you respond to that come ultimately down to a complex set of interpersonal relationships, but given how this was proposed, the tone of "yeah don't like this implementation because it does thinks I think make zero sense and you broke LKML rules, go back to the drawing board" seems adequate. I do think that there might be a bit of cultural dissonance at play though. The way the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) tend to handle feedback is just... a lot more "couched" in niceties. That's just... not as much the case in other countries. I can only speak for Europe but if you get feedback here, you get the feedback very directly - this is what the other person thinks of it and if they actively dislike it, you will hear it. In the UK/US this tends to be a lot more muted from what I've seen - actively calling out bad things as bad is discouraged (a frequent example is when someone says "it's alright" and they actually meant "I really dislike this idea" - in Europe you'll often just hear the latter), so when someone actually uses direct language it's seen as too aggressive.
Jyaif 3y ago
It's not direct, that's for sure. If you remove the smartassness you'd get a more readable and shorter code review.
thdc 3y ago
Arguably it's less direct due to the superlatives and exclamations. For example: > Christ. That's literally the remap_file_pages() system call definition. No way in hell does "ON_BEHALF_OF_KERNEL" make any sense in this context. This could be > That's the remap_file_pages() system call definition. "ON_BEHALF_OF_KERNEL" does not make any sense in this context. If someone I didn't know or was unfamiliar with gave me a review like this I'd frown, but since Torvalds is known for this then I'd shrug it off probably. It's a good, thorough review though.
- jonathanyc 3y ago
  And in spite of the superlatives and exclamations, the author still didn't seem to get the hint that they should maybe go back to the drawing board. See their post which Matt Wilcox is replying to. I've worked in environments where it was considered a little mean even to use the "request changes" button in GitHub, but it worked because people (1) got the hint when you left comments suggesting changes and (2) would be careful to address all of your suggestions before requesting review again. But I've also worked in an environment where people would try to sneak changes past you and then argue with you when they were caught. I don't think I've ever sworn in a code review comment but these days I can understand where Linus Torvalds is coming from. Things would be much nicer if people got hints and were careful, but we don't live in that world. My friend tried to use a credit card in Japan, and instead of saying "no" the shopkeeper just bowed and said "excuse me." Meanwhile yesterday in San Francisco I saw a customer arguing with the cashier for five minutes at McDonalds about whether or not they could use a coupon twice.
- withinboredom 3y ago
  The first is better, IMHO. No need to be so dry and boring in your second example. Also, in the first example, I know the reviewer is completely against my approach. I need some proper ammo to rebut with, or go back to the drawing board. In the second example, it could easily turn into a multi-day back-and-forth until one of us gives up.
  - pests 3y ago
    Ah yes, the best way to enforce technology decisions is by insults and hostility.
ajkjk 3y ago
Funny, I see people getting extra bitter and mean in the last decades or so and call that pathetic. The "fragile" people are the ones who are taking appropriate offense to it. Anyway there is no possible argument that the meanness of those replies is productive; it would clearly be more useful and direct to omit it and speak clearly about the problems instead of implying the person is an idiot for not understanding their mistakes. Moreover, why are you "surprised"? Do you live in a some toxic alternate reality where people talk like that regularly? For most people these messages are the only time they'll ever see someone being that mean in a professional context in their lives.
- zelon88 3y ago
  Can you imagine if there were no consequences for submitting shitty code to the Linux kernel team. You'd have every first year college student trying to get their name on the mailing list with some crappy commit that adds no value and only takes time away from meaningful work. Then you've got to hand hold and coddle that person, because you have to be nice to everyone. Yeah that's not gonna scale very well. I can see going easy on independent developers. But this is Google. One of the biggest licensors of Linux and a closed source competitor. Here they are adding a feature to a repo they need to use, and they're doing it half-assed. This is a feedback loop. Don't submit shit code to the most important repo in the world. Ain't nobody got time for that. If you do it as a fortune 500 company we will publically shame you. Some of y'all have never been earnestly told to get your shit together and it shows.
  - tom_ 3y ago
    You're in your mid thirties, and still talking like this. Clearly nobody has ever done it to you!
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      > You're in your mid thirties, and still talking like this. This constitutes a personal insult (calling him immature for his age), so you aren't walking your talk. In this comment you're going much further than Linus's review being discussed, which doesn't contain any personal insults. Maybe you think you're giving zelon88 a taste of his medicine like this, but if truly believe that people are obliged to communicate in a corporate-friendly manner you wouldn't be dishing out personal abuse like this to make a point. Overt tit-for-tat abusive communication doesn't fly in a modern psuedo-friendly corporate environment; you have to be more clever about it. In other words, you should lead by example. > Clearly nobody has ever done it to you! You really think nobody has ever been curt or even rude with zelon88? That beggars belief. Of course he has been on the receiving end of it; everybody has. Don't waste your time with the "you don't know what it's like" argument, nobody is going to believe that. You're wasting your time and undermining yourself with this tit-for-tat approach.
PumpkinSpice 3y ago
The issue isn't directness. The issue is repeatedly taking needless swipes at the author's competency or intent ("worthless", "complete nonsense", "totally illogical"), when Linus' criticisms are really mostly just small (if valid!) gripes about naming conventions and readability. This is particularly funny because I remember that several years ago, he publicly apologized for being abrasive and promised to get better... but old habits die hard. He has every right to run the project as he sees fit, but then, people here have every right to be mildly cranky about that too.
- noirscape 3y ago
  Maybe it's because I'm not American but I don't see that language as unwarranted nor particularly severe? (Also not insulting the authors competency; the strong language is mostly on the technical merits of the commit, not the authors own technical merits.) Like I've read some of Linus' older swear-laden rants back in the day; those could get unreasonably angry at people for what amounted to things like inconsistent commenting and basically had shit in them that amounted to "the author shouldn't ask me for anything ever again". That's not present here. This is a direct code review that calls out (from what I understand) a number of bad design problems (hence: totally illogical and complete nonsense) and the fact that the author doesn't seem to have followed the kernel commit message rules. (For which, yes, the moniker "worthless" is appropriate for those messages - the kernel has pretty strict commit message rules.) It's strong language but strong language of this stripe is only bad if it's excessive or attacks the wrong thing. I don't think it's excessive in this case; the patch seems like it's a poorly thought through solution and is a technical mess for a project that has strict rules about user space APIs (aka if a poor solution ends up being used, it'll be maintained for ages). In general the response from Linus reads more like that of a certain type of uni teacher; "this is bad, go back to the drawing board, here's what you did wrong". Finally, also keep in mind that this patch was submitted by a Google employee (they're representing their employer) and that as far as I understand it, by the time you get to contribute to the mailing list that has Linus doing code review, you're at least expected to be familiar with how the Kernel works - he's not in a position where he can scare the newbies[0]. I'd not put up with it if it were a colleague but that's also really not the dynamic here. Google is more akin to a third party vendor than anything else. [0]: Some of the lower tree maintainers are though.
bastardoperator 3y ago
I worked with a well know hacker/author at a company and while most people wouldn't step foot near them I saw it as an opportunity to maybe learn more. They were brutally honest in code review, but never personally mean. Yeah, I had some code reviews that looked just like this, but it motivated me to try harder. I learned a lot from this person and eventually gained trust and some friendship on top of additional knowledge. Don't be scared of a code review, be happy that code reviews will give you new insights even if that means the work you have now is wrong or requires refactoring.

I'm surprised by so many people taking offense at it. Very direct and to the point, it's great. People have become so fragile in the last decade or so. It's pathetic.

ranguna 3y ago

Offended? Sorry my message must've hit a traumatic chord on your brain, but I didn't say I was offended, just that it was aggressive. Like watching wwa show, it's aggressive, but entertaining. Please try to not project your thinking too much next time you read someone else's comment next time.

endisneigh 3y ago

The exact same points could’ve been made in a nicer fashion. Needlessly aggressive language imo. Would you speak to your teammates this way? Your child?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
withinboredom 3y ago
Yes. We need more pointing out when people do idiotic things, not less. Otherwise, in a few generations, we'll be wondering why you would water plants with toilet water.
- dustyleary 3y ago
  Is it possible to point out that you disagree with something without being rude or aggressive in speech?
  - withinboredom 3y ago
    How was he rude or aggressive? He just said what he saw: shit code he'd have to maintain and he clearly didn't want to.
josefx 3y ago
> Your child? Note: treat Google engineers like literal toddlers.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  Why do you believe children equates to toddlers?
  - josefx 3y ago
    As far as I can tell it at least doesn't exclude it. Edit: Treating someone like a child is probably demeaning enough either way.
noirscape 3y ago
No, but that's not the relationship between Google employees and the kernel either. Google is functionally a third party vendor submitting their own solution for a technical problem the Chromium team wants fixed by changes to the kernel. That's the lens through which the response should be seen imo. Google isn't a coworker, a teammate or a friend in this situation. They're a third party entirely.
- endisneigh 3y ago
  So what? Third parties should be treated respectfully, or do you disagree?
  - noirscape 3y ago
    Certainly. That said, I do think that Linus Torvalds is treating the Google employee respectfully here, given the dynamics and context at play. Firstly: Torvalds does not owe Google anything beyond basic respect for sending him a patch; they don't pay his wages, nor does the LKML have Google as a business customer (Google does donate to the LF but only 3% of the LFs actual funding goes to kernel development and therefore Torvalds' wages). That basic respect is given - Torvalds does not insult or demean the submitters technical skills, merely the implementation they ended up going with. Secondly: As far as I can tell, this proposal was brought forward straight up with an implementation, rather than consulting beforehand with the Mailing List on if this is a good idea and what such a contribution would look like in the context of the kernel (given that the implementation isn't a bugfix). Especially for more "mature"/"large" projects, dumping patch proposals that add maintenance overhead as a form of "discussion" as a submission tends to be seen as a hostile move. This is just general FOSS good behavior and from what I can tell this patch went through Googles internal discussion lists rather than the LKML. Google, perhaps to some suprise, does not own the LKML. The rudeness in that regard is mutual and was arguably started by the patch being submitted in that manner to begin with. (Something which is indicated further in the thread by the fact that the author attempted to start a new patch series for their proposal rather than discuss the feedback they got, showcasing they have little care for actually working with the LKML to get the patch merged). Thirdly: I frankly... just don't think this feedback is that harsh in the light of that dynamic? Sure, some of it uses strong language but I've been on the receiving end of way worse from university teachers and the like. "This is a fundamentally bad implementation that doesn't follow LKML guidelines, but I like the idea" is what a lot of it comes down to. Calling something bad is not a mortal sin; if it sucks it just... sucks. The specifics of how you respond to that come ultimately down to a complex set of interpersonal relationships, but given how this was proposed, the tone of "yeah don't like this implementation because it does thinks I think make zero sense and you broke LKML rules, go back to the drawing board" seems adequate. I do think that there might be a bit of cultural dissonance at play though. The way the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) tend to handle feedback is just... a lot more "couched" in niceties. That's just... not as much the case in other countries. I can only speak for Europe but if you get feedback here, you get the feedback very directly - this is what the other person thinks of it and if they actively dislike it, you will hear it. In the UK/US this tends to be a lot more muted from what I've seen - actively calling out bad things as bad is discouraged (a frequent example is when someone says "it's alright" and they actually meant "I really dislike this idea" - in Europe you'll often just hear the latter), so when someone actually uses direct language it's seen as too aggressive.

Jyaif 3y ago

It's not direct, that's for sure. If you remove the smartassness you'd get a more readable and shorter code review.

thdc 3y ago

Arguably it's less direct due to the superlatives and exclamations. For example: > Christ. That's literally the remap_file_pages() system call definition. No way in hell does "ON_BEHALF_OF_KERNEL" make any sense in this context. This could be > That's the remap_file_pages() system call definition. "ON_BEHALF_OF_KERNEL" does not make any sense in this context. If someone I didn't know or was unfamiliar with gave me a review like this I'd frown, but since Torvalds is known for this then I'd shrug it off probably. It's a good, thorough review though.

jonathanyc 3y ago
And in spite of the superlatives and exclamations, the author still didn't seem to get the hint that they should maybe go back to the drawing board. See their post which Matt Wilcox is replying to. I've worked in environments where it was considered a little mean even to use the "request changes" button in GitHub, but it worked because people (1) got the hint when you left comments suggesting changes and (2) would be careful to address all of your suggestions before requesting review again. But I've also worked in an environment where people would try to sneak changes past you and then argue with you when they were caught. I don't think I've ever sworn in a code review comment but these days I can understand where Linus Torvalds is coming from. Things would be much nicer if people got hints and were careful, but we don't live in that world. My friend tried to use a credit card in Japan, and instead of saying "no" the shopkeeper just bowed and said "excuse me." Meanwhile yesterday in San Francisco I saw a customer arguing with the cashier for five minutes at McDonalds about whether or not they could use a coupon twice.
withinboredom 3y ago
The first is better, IMHO. No need to be so dry and boring in your second example. Also, in the first example, I know the reviewer is completely against my approach. I need some proper ammo to rebut with, or go back to the drawing board. In the second example, it could easily turn into a multi-day back-and-forth until one of us gives up.
- pests 3y ago
  Ah yes, the best way to enforce technology decisions is by insults and hostility.

ajkjk 3y ago

Funny, I see people getting extra bitter and mean in the last decades or so and call that pathetic. The "fragile" people are the ones who are taking appropriate offense to it. Anyway there is no possible argument that the meanness of those replies is productive; it would clearly be more useful and direct to omit it and speak clearly about the problems instead of implying the person is an idiot for not understanding their mistakes. Moreover, why are you "surprised"? Do you live in a some toxic alternate reality where people talk like that regularly? For most people these messages are the only time they'll ever see someone being that mean in a professional context in their lives.

zelon88 3y ago
Can you imagine if there were no consequences for submitting shitty code to the Linux kernel team. You'd have every first year college student trying to get their name on the mailing list with some crappy commit that adds no value and only takes time away from meaningful work. Then you've got to hand hold and coddle that person, because you have to be nice to everyone. Yeah that's not gonna scale very well. I can see going easy on independent developers. But this is Google. One of the biggest licensors of Linux and a closed source competitor. Here they are adding a feature to a repo they need to use, and they're doing it half-assed. This is a feedback loop. Don't submit shit code to the most important repo in the world. Ain't nobody got time for that. If you do it as a fortune 500 company we will publically shame you. Some of y'all have never been earnestly told to get your shit together and it shows.
- tom_ 3y ago
  You're in your mid thirties, and still talking like this. Clearly nobody has ever done it to you!
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    > You're in your mid thirties, and still talking like this. This constitutes a personal insult (calling him immature for his age), so you aren't walking your talk. In this comment you're going much further than Linus's review being discussed, which doesn't contain any personal insults. Maybe you think you're giving zelon88 a taste of his medicine like this, but if truly believe that people are obliged to communicate in a corporate-friendly manner you wouldn't be dishing out personal abuse like this to make a point. Overt tit-for-tat abusive communication doesn't fly in a modern psuedo-friendly corporate environment; you have to be more clever about it. In other words, you should lead by example. > Clearly nobody has ever done it to you! You really think nobody has ever been curt or even rude with zelon88? That beggars belief. Of course he has been on the receiving end of it; everybody has. Don't waste your time with the "you don't know what it's like" argument, nobody is going to believe that. You're wasting your time and undermining yourself with this tit-for-tat approach.

PumpkinSpice 3y ago

The issue isn't directness. The issue is repeatedly taking needless swipes at the author's competency or intent ("worthless", "complete nonsense", "totally illogical"), when Linus' criticisms are really mostly just small (if valid!) gripes about naming conventions and readability. This is particularly funny because I remember that several years ago, he publicly apologized for being abrasive and promised to get better... but old habits die hard. He has every right to run the project as he sees fit, but then, people here have every right to be mildly cranky about that too.

noirscape 3y ago
Maybe it's because I'm not American but I don't see that language as unwarranted nor particularly severe? (Also not insulting the authors competency; the strong language is mostly on the technical merits of the commit, not the authors own technical merits.) Like I've read some of Linus' older swear-laden rants back in the day; those could get unreasonably angry at people for what amounted to things like inconsistent commenting and basically had shit in them that amounted to "the author shouldn't ask me for anything ever again". That's not present here. This is a direct code review that calls out (from what I understand) a number of bad design problems (hence: totally illogical and complete nonsense) and the fact that the author doesn't seem to have followed the kernel commit message rules. (For which, yes, the moniker "worthless" is appropriate for those messages - the kernel has pretty strict commit message rules.) It's strong language but strong language of this stripe is only bad if it's excessive or attacks the wrong thing. I don't think it's excessive in this case; the patch seems like it's a poorly thought through solution and is a technical mess for a project that has strict rules about user space APIs (aka if a poor solution ends up being used, it'll be maintained for ages). In general the response from Linus reads more like that of a certain type of uni teacher; "this is bad, go back to the drawing board, here's what you did wrong". Finally, also keep in mind that this patch was submitted by a Google employee (they're representing their employer) and that as far as I understand it, by the time you get to contribute to the mailing list that has Linus doing code review, you're at least expected to be familiar with how the Kernel works - he's not in a position where he can scare the newbies[0]. I'd not put up with it if it were a colleague but that's also really not the dynamic here. Google is more akin to a third party vendor than anything else. [0]: Some of the lower tree maintainers are though.

bastardoperator 3y ago

I worked with a well know hacker/author at a company and while most people wouldn't step foot near them I saw it as an opportunity to maybe learn more. They were brutally honest in code review, but never personally mean. Yeah, I had some code reviews that looked just like this, but it motivated me to try harder. I learned a lot from this person and eventually gained trust and some friendship on top of additional knowledge. Don't be scared of a code review, be happy that code reviews will give you new insights even if that means the work you have now is wrong or requires refactoring.