4 ms·

Linus famously was quite strict and cursed quite a bit when somebody pissed him off with stupidity.

by whatevaa 10mo ago

cinntaile 10mo ago
He's not exactly a role model when it comes to communication.
- antonvs 10mo ago
  Perhaps he should be. This idea that we should tolerate terrible things and only respond to them politely seems to produce bad outcomes, for some mysterious reason.
  - ethbr1 10mo ago
    The problem with that is always people. Because one person is judging that "terribleness" before being entitled to flame, changes to that person influence their ability to objectively make that assessment. Say, when their project becomes popular, they gain more power and fame, and suddenly their self-image is different. Hence it usually being a more community-encouraging approach to keep discussions technical without vitriol. Flaming is unnecessarily disruptive, not least because it gives other (probably not as talented) folks a license to also put their worst impulses to text.
  - csoups14 10mo ago
    Any analysis of Github's functionality that begins and ends with blaming individuals and their competency is deeply mistaken while being insulting. Anyone who has ever worked at a large company knows exactly how hard it is for top performers to make changes and it's not difficult because the other people are stupid. At least in my experience, almost everyone holding this "they must be stupid" opinion knows very little about how large organizations make decisions and knows very little about how incentives at different levels of an org chart leads to suboptimal decisions and results. I would agree with you that being overly polite helps no one, but being correct does, and what they initially wrote isn't even right and it's also insulting. There's no value in that.
    - throwawaymaths 10mo ago
      IDK being able to produce a good product in a corpo environment sure sounds like a competency issue. > how hard it is for top performers to make change then you're not a top performer anymore? seems pretty straightforward > they must be stupid one can be not stupid and still not competent
    - nottorp 10mo ago
      But should you care about MS's internals? Product is useless, you move along. Save your compassion for those actually needing it.
      - esafak 10mo ago
        Because people would rather Microsoft fixed it than move.
        nottorp 10mo ago
        Moving is painful but I'm sure they didn't move without asking/waiting for MS to fix it.
  - IgorPartola 10mo ago
    I am not convinced of this. Being rude and insulting someone’s intelligence is rarely a good trait. Linus got away with it due to the unique circumstances: leader of an incredibly popular open source project and a gatekeeper to a lot of access to it. My argument against how he handles things has always been that while it may seem effective, we do not know how much more effective he would be if he did not curse people out for being dumb fucks. And it doesn’t seem like this is a requirement for the job: lots of other project leaders treat others with courtesy and respect and it doesn’t seem to cause issues. The reality is that it is easy to wish more people were verbally abusive to others when it isn’t directed at you. But soon as you are on the receiving end of it, especially as a volunteer, there is a greater than not chance that you will be less likely to want to continue contributing.
    - infecto 10mo ago
      I think this is a good way to put it and I agree with it. Linus is a jerk and I would never want to work with him. Doubly so with zig maintainers who call other groups of people losers or monkeys. Shows a clear lack of maturity and ability to think.
      - IgorPartola 10mo ago
        Eh. Linus has a long history of abusive behavior towards other Linux contributors but also apparently apologized for it and started amending his ways. The Zig person I do not know by reputation, let alone in person. One post that he later chose to amend based on feedback is not enough for me to pass that kind of judgement. If anything, the fact that he updated it shows the opposite of lack of maturity. Adults can get frustrated. What they do with it is what matters.
        infecto 10mo ago
        Adults don’t call people losers or monkeys in social media. I am not passing judgement, it is simply not acceptable.
        10mo ago
- tryauuum 10mo ago
  GitHub can suck my ass, I think this is the most suitable feedback to them I've spent more than a month trying to delete my account on GitHub, still couldn't do it

Linus famously was quite strict and cursed quite a bit when somebody pissed him off with stupidity.

cinntaile 10mo ago

He's not exactly a role model when it comes to communication.

antonvs 10mo ago
Perhaps he should be. This idea that we should tolerate terrible things and only respond to them politely seems to produce bad outcomes, for some mysterious reason.
- ethbr1 10mo ago
  The problem with that is always people. Because one person is judging that "terribleness" before being entitled to flame, changes to that person influence their ability to objectively make that assessment. Say, when their project becomes popular, they gain more power and fame, and suddenly their self-image is different. Hence it usually being a more community-encouraging approach to keep discussions technical without vitriol. Flaming is unnecessarily disruptive, not least because it gives other (probably not as talented) folks a license to also put their worst impulses to text.
- csoups14 10mo ago
  Any analysis of Github's functionality that begins and ends with blaming individuals and their competency is deeply mistaken while being insulting. Anyone who has ever worked at a large company knows exactly how hard it is for top performers to make changes and it's not difficult because the other people are stupid. At least in my experience, almost everyone holding this "they must be stupid" opinion knows very little about how large organizations make decisions and knows very little about how incentives at different levels of an org chart leads to suboptimal decisions and results. I would agree with you that being overly polite helps no one, but being correct does, and what they initially wrote isn't even right and it's also insulting. There's no value in that.
  - throwawaymaths 10mo ago
    IDK being able to produce a good product in a corpo environment sure sounds like a competency issue. > how hard it is for top performers to make change then you're not a top performer anymore? seems pretty straightforward > they must be stupid one can be not stupid and still not competent
  - nottorp 10mo ago
    But should you care about MS's internals? Product is useless, you move along. Save your compassion for those actually needing it.
    - esafak 10mo ago
      Because people would rather Microsoft fixed it than move.
      - nottorp 10mo ago
        Moving is painful but I'm sure they didn't move without asking/waiting for MS to fix it.
- IgorPartola 10mo ago
  I am not convinced of this. Being rude and insulting someone’s intelligence is rarely a good trait. Linus got away with it due to the unique circumstances: leader of an incredibly popular open source project and a gatekeeper to a lot of access to it. My argument against how he handles things has always been that while it may seem effective, we do not know how much more effective he would be if he did not curse people out for being dumb fucks. And it doesn’t seem like this is a requirement for the job: lots of other project leaders treat others with courtesy and respect and it doesn’t seem to cause issues. The reality is that it is easy to wish more people were verbally abusive to others when it isn’t directed at you. But soon as you are on the receiving end of it, especially as a volunteer, there is a greater than not chance that you will be less likely to want to continue contributing.
  - infecto 10mo ago
    I think this is a good way to put it and I agree with it. Linus is a jerk and I would never want to work with him. Doubly so with zig maintainers who call other groups of people losers or monkeys. Shows a clear lack of maturity and ability to think.
    - IgorPartola 10mo ago
      Eh. Linus has a long history of abusive behavior towards other Linux contributors but also apparently apologized for it and started amending his ways. The Zig person I do not know by reputation, let alone in person. One post that he later chose to amend based on feedback is not enough for me to pass that kind of judgement. If anything, the fact that he updated it shows the opposite of lack of maturity. Adults can get frustrated. What they do with it is what matters.
      - infecto 10mo ago
        Adults don’t call people losers or monkeys in social media. I am not passing judgement, it is simply not acceptable.
        10mo ago
tryauuum 10mo ago
GitHub can suck my ass, I think this is the most suitable feedback to them I've spent more than a month trying to delete my account on GitHub, still couldn't do it