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I could not agree more. One factor that I think contributes to the Asshole Ethos common among programmers is this idea that great men of genius cannot be held

I could not agree more. One factor that I think contributes to the Asshole Ethos common among programmers is this idea that great men of genius cannot be held to the same moral standards as mere mortals. This idea, combined with an inflated sense of self-worth, makes for a host of Steve Jobs and Linus Torvalds wannabes, convinced that their special nature absolves them from social norms and responsibility. The Raskolnikov-ian egoists ought to read Crime and Punishment... I can fortunately say that in my experience, few programmers are assholes in person. Online forums are another matter. :)

demachina 13y ago
On the other hand Dave has a notoriously thin skin. He is very good at criticizing everyone else but he absolutely doesn't take criticism himself. Only time you are going to strike up a conversation with him is if you agree with him on everything. He generally expects everyone to bow to him as the inventor of blogging and RSS and podcasting and whatever, and that means you are supposed to listen to his opinions on everything, agree with him, and see his wisdom and if you dont, YOUR BLOCKED, cut off, dismissed and ignored. Who knows how that meeting with Marissa Mayer actually went down but there are plenty of people who have been lectured, scolded and demeaned by Dave who have probably wanted to walk out on him so its entirely beleivable that she did and he probably provoked at least some of it. You would think Dave would, after all these years, realize that if you post stuff on the Internets people are going to flame you for it because A. They disagree B. They troll for fun C. Dave has ticked off so many people over the years they flame him because they are perma-tired of his holier than thou attitude. No people shouldn't be rude, ever, but they are. Dave is rude all of the time too. Yea you can just like, you know, block the entire Internet and that will stop it, but at what price. I think Dave is mostly pushing for the latter, or at least he wants anyone who doesn't agree with Dave on everything to be blocked permenently from everything. Dave, if you want, to block everyone on the Internet who disagrees with you, fine, go for it, write your own tools to do it, but don't expect everyone else to do it for you.
- dhimes 13y ago
  I think what disturbed me more was the defense of the lies told in order to 'just get the deal done.' In my book, it's not ok. It's not 'just business.'
larrys 13y ago
"convinced that their special nature absolves them from social norms and responsibility." Is it that they feel this way inherently (maybe) or that there are a large percentage of people that surround them, and/or stand to gain from them, that tolerate and allow that behavior? My feeling is that people act the way they do because they can get away with it with little repercussions. If you've ever dealt with a person with an anger problem you will see that many times when they deal with someone close to them they act one way (abusive) but with complete strangers they can be as sweet as pie because that person is the unknown and they aren't going to take a chance with a stranger who might react in a way to deny them what they want (of course yes there are those who act like total loose canons with everyone but most that I have observed tend to differentiate between degree of closeness).
- roguecoder 13y ago
  From a very early age, probably. We all remember the kid who could get away with calling out in class because he was always right, or goofing off and harassing the other students because he already knew the material being taught, or demanding the college professor address his long, convoluted and only tangentially-related comment no one cared about.
gaius 13y ago
It has been my privilege in my career to work with some truly talented people, and my misfortunute to work with some whose talents were only in bullshit. I am thinking now of the smartest, by a considerable margin, guy I know, a former cow-orker and a cryptographer. He is the nicest, humblest guy you could hope to meet, he always had time to deal with my stupid questions (I was the only non-PhD in that team). And this is a general pattern: truly smart guys are beyond ego, they exist on another plane. They have time for mortals because they effortlessly see the big picture. Now let me be brutally honest about Torvalds: Tanenbaum was correct. He is not a great coder or a great thinker, Linux as he wrote it was indeed as Tanenbaum said, a giant step backwards. Torvalds just happened to be at the right place at the right time to be at the nucleus of a nascent social movement (what we now call Open Source). What has he done lately - Transmeta? And he is well aware of this himself I suspect: the abrasive personality is his insecurity showing.
- barrkel 13y ago
  What he's done lately? Git. Two out of three isn't that bad.
  - gaius 13y ago
    Sure, git's nice, but there are a dozen, as-good, DVCSs out there. I never said Torvalds wasn't a competent programmer - merely that he is wildly insecure about his technical authority. Alan Cox is 10x the programmer, when does he pick fights with anyone?

demachina 13y ago

On the other hand Dave has a notoriously thin skin. He is very good at criticizing everyone else but he absolutely doesn't take criticism himself. Only time you are going to strike up a conversation with him is if you agree with him on everything. He generally expects everyone to bow to him as the inventor of blogging and RSS and podcasting and whatever, and that means you are supposed to listen to his opinions on everything, agree with him, and see his wisdom and if you dont, YOUR BLOCKED, cut off, dismissed and ignored. Who knows how that meeting with Marissa Mayer actually went down but there are plenty of people who have been lectured, scolded and demeaned by Dave who have probably wanted to walk out on him so its entirely beleivable that she did and he probably provoked at least some of it. You would think Dave would, after all these years, realize that if you post stuff on the Internets people are going to flame you for it because A. They disagree B. They troll for fun C. Dave has ticked off so many people over the years they flame him because they are perma-tired of his holier than thou attitude. No people shouldn't be rude, ever, but they are. Dave is rude all of the time too. Yea you can just like, you know, block the entire Internet and that will stop it, but at what price. I think Dave is mostly pushing for the latter, or at least he wants anyone who doesn't agree with Dave on everything to be blocked permenently from everything. Dave, if you want, to block everyone on the Internet who disagrees with you, fine, go for it, write your own tools to do it, but don't expect everyone else to do it for you.

dhimes 13y ago
I think what disturbed me more was the defense of the lies told in order to 'just get the deal done.' In my book, it's not ok. It's not 'just business.'

larrys 13y ago

"convinced that their special nature absolves them from social norms and responsibility." Is it that they feel this way inherently (maybe) or that there are a large percentage of people that surround them, and/or stand to gain from them, that tolerate and allow that behavior? My feeling is that people act the way they do because they can get away with it with little repercussions. If you've ever dealt with a person with an anger problem you will see that many times when they deal with someone close to them they act one way (abusive) but with complete strangers they can be as sweet as pie because that person is the unknown and they aren't going to take a chance with a stranger who might react in a way to deny them what they want (of course yes there are those who act like total loose canons with everyone but most that I have observed tend to differentiate between degree of closeness).

roguecoder 13y ago
From a very early age, probably. We all remember the kid who could get away with calling out in class because he was always right, or goofing off and harassing the other students because he already knew the material being taught, or demanding the college professor address his long, convoluted and only tangentially-related comment no one cared about.

gaius 13y ago

It has been my privilege in my career to work with some truly talented people, and my misfortunute to work with some whose talents were only in bullshit. I am thinking now of the smartest, by a considerable margin, guy I know, a former cow-orker and a cryptographer. He is the nicest, humblest guy you could hope to meet, he always had time to deal with my stupid questions (I was the only non-PhD in that team). And this is a general pattern: truly smart guys are beyond ego, they exist on another plane. They have time for mortals because they effortlessly see the big picture. Now let me be brutally honest about Torvalds: Tanenbaum was correct. He is not a great coder or a great thinker, Linux as he wrote it was indeed as Tanenbaum said, a giant step backwards. Torvalds just happened to be at the right place at the right time to be at the nucleus of a nascent social movement (what we now call Open Source). What has he done lately - Transmeta? And he is well aware of this himself I suspect: the abrasive personality is his insecurity showing.

barrkel 13y ago
What he's done lately? Git. Two out of three isn't that bad.
- gaius 13y ago
  Sure, git's nice, but there are a dozen, as-good, DVCSs out there. I never said Torvalds wasn't a competent programmer - merely that he is wildly insecure about his technical authority. Alan Cox is 10x the programmer, when does he pick fights with anyone?