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I feel like Tovald should watch DHH's railsconf talk on progress & the 'old' mentality. This feels alarmist, but he like any other githubber gets to choose what

I feel like Tovald should watch DHH's railsconf talk on progress & the 'old' mentality. This feels alarmist, but he like any other githubber gets to choose what gets accepted or rejected.

nupark2 14y ago
The fact that you're setting up DHH as a foil to Linus is exactly why the old men are cranky; when it comes to technology, Linus has more qualifications in his pinky than DHH has all put together.
- glogla 14y ago
  Then again, are we talking about technical expertise, or about Linus' inability to act like a reasonable human being?
marcamillion 14y ago
Funnily enough...DHH's talk is EXACTLY the first thing that came to mind when I saw Torvald's comment. Who cares if Torvalds has 'more' technical chops than DHH...DHH might be more abrasive, but it is a good abrasive. He is always pushing the community forward and encouraging Rails developers to be a little better. He is not afraid to embrace new technologies and give credit where its due. Can't tell when last I have seen these older guys do the same.
- Karunamon 14y ago
  You can't see how the head Linux kernel dev has been pushing the community foward? Okay then.
  - marcamillion 14y ago
    Heh.....you misunderstood me. I have never once bashed his contributions to the community and OSS. Just like I would never do the same for the creators of Java, C, PHP, all of which I don't use and have no interest in. But there is significant value in all of them and we are all better off for their existence. My point was, more often than not....you hear the creators of these 'foundational' contributions complaining about new things (either new approaches which were different than theirs, or they shit on new languages because those languages don't have some purist function that theirs does or doesn't achieve the same low-level execution speed that theirs does). DHH can be a dick, but I have never seen him shit on someone for trying something new (even within the Ruby & Rails core). That being said, I am not saying he doesn't disagree with the approach that people take....but there is a difference between shitting on someone/something and disagreeing with it. What Linus did here was shit all over Github's implementation of the pull request - because it is different than his implementation would have been.
    - dasil003 14y ago
      Why do you conclude that Linus is shitting over Github's pull requests simply because they are different from what he would have done? What possible reason do you have for jumping to such a superficial conclusion? I'm not going to speculate, but it's clear you are talking out your ass. Linus has spend the last 20+ years building one of the most important pieces of software in existence. Not only that, but he created git, without which the Github guys, DHH, and everyone else would be using fucking Subversion. The process that he follows for kernel development does not exist out of vanity, it serves an actual proven purpose. Linus' care and attention to detail are a big part of why you can rely on the stability of Linux over time. For you to come in here spouting off some nonsense about why he does this or why he does that without clue #1 as to the real reasons, and then to pay homage to the guys who are "trying something new" all the time standing on the shoulders of said giants, well, it's a slap in the face. Respect is due my friend.
    - eugenejen 14y ago
      I think you misunderstood that a lot of times so called "new things" are already thought about by those creators. But they may thought about cases that those new things are not a good solutions to problems and they decide to implement them in different way. In Crockford's case, it is the ';' at the end. And he wants to enforce it for clarity. And in Torvalds' case he wants accountability. I don't think they did not consider those new ideas when they start designing json/git, but they choose ways that facilitate programmers to create better/clearer/more accountable ways to solve problems. I think for all software engineers who are old enough, we all know writing software is a social activity and sometime it is better to make projects manageable. I think any one who creates technologies has to understand that design decision is an "Opinion".
    - luriel 14y ago
      > Java, C, PHP, all of which I don't use and have no interest in. But there is significant value in all of them and we are all better off for their existence. I doubt we are better off for PHP's existence (only mentioning the oxymoron "PHP security" should be enough to make this point), many would argue the same for Java (unless you are a consultant or book publisher), and some have argued the same for C. And just because something is new doesn't make it good, in the programming world the number of square wheels built grows every day, and we are in danger of the resulting mountain collapsing and burying us all in a tangle of inscrutable complexity of bad solutions to problems that were solved long ago.
ionforce 14y ago
Do you have a cliff's notes version?
glogla 14y ago
Is there a link? I'd really grateful for that.

I feel like Tovald should watch DHH's railsconf talk on progress & the 'old' mentality. This feels alarmist, but he like any other githubber gets to choose what gets accepted or rejected.

nupark2 14y ago

The fact that you're setting up DHH as a foil to Linus is exactly why the old men are cranky; when it comes to technology, Linus has more qualifications in his pinky than DHH has all put together.

glogla 14y ago
Then again, are we talking about technical expertise, or about Linus' inability to act like a reasonable human being?

marcamillion 14y ago

Funnily enough...DHH's talk is EXACTLY the first thing that came to mind when I saw Torvald's comment. Who cares if Torvalds has 'more' technical chops than DHH...DHH might be more abrasive, but it is a good abrasive. He is always pushing the community forward and encouraging Rails developers to be a little better. He is not afraid to embrace new technologies and give credit where its due. Can't tell when last I have seen these older guys do the same.

Karunamon 14y ago
You can't see how the head Linux kernel dev has been pushing the community foward? Okay then.
- marcamillion 14y ago
  Heh.....you misunderstood me. I have never once bashed his contributions to the community and OSS. Just like I would never do the same for the creators of Java, C, PHP, all of which I don't use and have no interest in. But there is significant value in all of them and we are all better off for their existence. My point was, more often than not....you hear the creators of these 'foundational' contributions complaining about new things (either new approaches which were different than theirs, or they shit on new languages because those languages don't have some purist function that theirs does or doesn't achieve the same low-level execution speed that theirs does). DHH can be a dick, but I have never seen him shit on someone for trying something new (even within the Ruby & Rails core). That being said, I am not saying he doesn't disagree with the approach that people take....but there is a difference between shitting on someone/something and disagreeing with it. What Linus did here was shit all over Github's implementation of the pull request - because it is different than his implementation would have been.
  - dasil003 14y ago
    Why do you conclude that Linus is shitting over Github's pull requests simply because they are different from what he would have done? What possible reason do you have for jumping to such a superficial conclusion? I'm not going to speculate, but it's clear you are talking out your ass. Linus has spend the last 20+ years building one of the most important pieces of software in existence. Not only that, but he created git, without which the Github guys, DHH, and everyone else would be using fucking Subversion. The process that he follows for kernel development does not exist out of vanity, it serves an actual proven purpose. Linus' care and attention to detail are a big part of why you can rely on the stability of Linux over time. For you to come in here spouting off some nonsense about why he does this or why he does that without clue #1 as to the real reasons, and then to pay homage to the guys who are "trying something new" all the time standing on the shoulders of said giants, well, it's a slap in the face. Respect is due my friend.
  - eugenejen 14y ago
    I think you misunderstood that a lot of times so called "new things" are already thought about by those creators. But they may thought about cases that those new things are not a good solutions to problems and they decide to implement them in different way. In Crockford's case, it is the ';' at the end. And he wants to enforce it for clarity. And in Torvalds' case he wants accountability. I don't think they did not consider those new ideas when they start designing json/git, but they choose ways that facilitate programmers to create better/clearer/more accountable ways to solve problems. I think for all software engineers who are old enough, we all know writing software is a social activity and sometime it is better to make projects manageable. I think any one who creates technologies has to understand that design decision is an "Opinion".
  - luriel 14y ago
    > Java, C, PHP, all of which I don't use and have no interest in. But there is significant value in all of them and we are all better off for their existence. I doubt we are better off for PHP's existence (only mentioning the oxymoron "PHP security" should be enough to make this point), many would argue the same for Java (unless you are a consultant or book publisher), and some have argued the same for C. And just because something is new doesn't make it good, in the programming world the number of square wheels built grows every day, and we are in danger of the resulting mountain collapsing and burying us all in a tangle of inscrutable complexity of bad solutions to problems that were solved long ago.

ionforce 14y ago

Do you have a cliff's notes version?

glogla 14y ago

Is there a link? I'd really grateful for that.