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Years of linux kernel, theo de raadt/bsd, and grsec mailing list total rage and various IRC hacker/dev channel slamming of idiocy has hardened my skin and actua

Years of linux kernel, theo de raadt/bsd, and grsec mailing list total rage and various IRC hacker/dev channel slamming of idiocy has hardened my skin and actually makes me thankful they are clear, concise and direct with their criticism instead of phony hand holding and passive aggressiveness. It's a rite of passage to get your ass handed to you by other devs. Some people just don't get it, you have to pummel them with a blast of anger on the mailing list or they'll continue to waste everybody's time with their idiocy. It's not the end of the world if somebody calls your insecure program a pile of shit and you a nerf herding waste of skin for inflicting said shit upon the world. That's like standard behaviour since the days of Stallman at MIT labs

npsimons 13y ago
This. Every time someone gets flamed, you get the same crowd of people going "what an asshole". Except, oh wait, the person got flamed for breaking userspace and not fessing up to it, or providing a false sense of security to people whose lives depend upon it. And in each case, these weren't newbies - they had been warned before and should have known better. It's not just ignorance, it's willful, practically malicious ignorance. Wake up. This isn't some social media photo-sharing app. This is the literal definition of mission critical software. Being an asshole is the cost to pay to either a) convince incompetent people to stop wasting everyone else's time or b) convince them to become competent. You know why I don't write and release crypto software? Because I know I'm not qualified to.
ceol 13y ago
This is a really gross attitude, and it's even grosser that you dress it up like some macho rite-of-passage. Call it what it is: A bunch of bitter nerds taking their pent-up anger out on random newbies. It's the fraternity hazing of the tech world, it's bullshit, and it needs to stop. It doesn't need other bitter nerds treating it like it's normal. Instead of expecting newbies to know they're going to be met with a storm of putrid shit should they speak a syllable out of line, how about we expect our moderators and leaders have some degree of social skill?
- dobbsbob 13y ago
  I think there's something wrong with you if you get all uppity and bent out of shape over a senior developer calling you out. I actually laugh when Theo De Raadt calls my device driver a flaming bag of of shit, and says my head must be so far up my ass I'm unable to understand the interfaces I'm coding to. I rewrite it then submit it to somebody else to review before submission, then get a message saying thanks for doing it the proper way, thanks for using the proper channels, and hey you seem OK do you want to come to the invite only hackathon in Germany this year? If I cried about it instead, I'd still be a shitty programmer, and I wouldn't be drinking gigantic beers in Hamburg learning invaluable methods from Henning Brauer how to properly design a program from the ground up with security in mind so you don't have to dispose of everything half way through a major project, wasting everybody else's time because you didn't carefully design. If you think mailing list comments are bad, wait until a room full of developers has to delete six days worth of coding because you screwed up the design with a simple mistake. Wait until your boss finds out you wasted company resources and money for months and had to scrap a project. You will get worse than hurt feelings, you will be fired. Almost all security/crypto projects are open source. There's no money involved, therefore no corporate sensitivity training or social skills needed. What's needed is secure code to stop governments from rounding up Syrian and Bahraini dissidents and drilling holes into their knees during interrogation because they were duped into trusting cryptocat while planning their democracy protests.
  - ceol 13y ago
    There's something wrong with someone who doesn't want to get treated like shit? You're not helping your case. > What's needed is secure code to stop governments from rounding up Syrian and Bahraini dissidents and drilling holes into their knees during interrogation because they were duped into trusting cryptocat while planning their democracy protests. Oh, get over yourself. We all know the vast majority of online cryptographic transmissions are for child pornography and drug purchases. Don't act like Syrian rebels actually use these technologies when most of them don't even have access to a computer, let alone the knowledge of how to use one. This is seriously the problem. You sit there and think modern cryptography is something other than a rich white guy's game, as though it's nothing but a Righteous Endeavor, so you get to treat other people like shit. The fact that the paragraph before that one is all about how you're getting drunk at some invite-only German hackathon is proof enough.
unethical_ban 13y ago
No, I think people should be treated roughly in the same way they'd expect to be treated in meatspace. I know I don't always configure a server correctly the first time, but if my lead called me a fucking dipshit and a waste of time, I'd go find another job real damned quick. There's a certain level of banter and sarcasm allowed between friends and known colleagues, but strangers don't have that luxury, or shouldn't.

npsimons 13y ago

This. Every time someone gets flamed, you get the same crowd of people going "what an asshole". Except, oh wait, the person got flamed for breaking userspace and not fessing up to it, or providing a false sense of security to people whose lives depend upon it. And in each case, these weren't newbies - they had been warned before and should have known better. It's not just ignorance, it's willful, practically malicious ignorance. Wake up. This isn't some social media photo-sharing app. This is the literal definition of mission critical software. Being an asshole is the cost to pay to either a) convince incompetent people to stop wasting everyone else's time or b) convince them to become competent. You know why I don't write and release crypto software? Because I know I'm not qualified to.

ceol 13y ago

This is a really gross attitude, and it's even grosser that you dress it up like some macho rite-of-passage. Call it what it is: A bunch of bitter nerds taking their pent-up anger out on random newbies. It's the fraternity hazing of the tech world, it's bullshit, and it needs to stop. It doesn't need other bitter nerds treating it like it's normal. Instead of expecting newbies to know they're going to be met with a storm of putrid shit should they speak a syllable out of line, how about we expect our moderators and leaders have some degree of social skill?

dobbsbob 13y ago
I think there's something wrong with you if you get all uppity and bent out of shape over a senior developer calling you out. I actually laugh when Theo De Raadt calls my device driver a flaming bag of of shit, and says my head must be so far up my ass I'm unable to understand the interfaces I'm coding to. I rewrite it then submit it to somebody else to review before submission, then get a message saying thanks for doing it the proper way, thanks for using the proper channels, and hey you seem OK do you want to come to the invite only hackathon in Germany this year? If I cried about it instead, I'd still be a shitty programmer, and I wouldn't be drinking gigantic beers in Hamburg learning invaluable methods from Henning Brauer how to properly design a program from the ground up with security in mind so you don't have to dispose of everything half way through a major project, wasting everybody else's time because you didn't carefully design. If you think mailing list comments are bad, wait until a room full of developers has to delete six days worth of coding because you screwed up the design with a simple mistake. Wait until your boss finds out you wasted company resources and money for months and had to scrap a project. You will get worse than hurt feelings, you will be fired. Almost all security/crypto projects are open source. There's no money involved, therefore no corporate sensitivity training or social skills needed. What's needed is secure code to stop governments from rounding up Syrian and Bahraini dissidents and drilling holes into their knees during interrogation because they were duped into trusting cryptocat while planning their democracy protests.
- ceol 13y ago
  There's something wrong with someone who doesn't want to get treated like shit? You're not helping your case. > What's needed is secure code to stop governments from rounding up Syrian and Bahraini dissidents and drilling holes into their knees during interrogation because they were duped into trusting cryptocat while planning their democracy protests. Oh, get over yourself. We all know the vast majority of online cryptographic transmissions are for child pornography and drug purchases. Don't act like Syrian rebels actually use these technologies when most of them don't even have access to a computer, let alone the knowledge of how to use one. This is seriously the problem. You sit there and think modern cryptography is something other than a rich white guy's game, as though it's nothing but a Righteous Endeavor, so you get to treat other people like shit. The fact that the paragraph before that one is all about how you're getting drunk at some invite-only German hackathon is proof enough.

unethical_ban 13y ago

No, I think people should be treated roughly in the same way they'd expect to be treated in meatspace. I know I don't always configure a server correctly the first time, but if my lead called me a fucking dipshit and a waste of time, I'd go find another job real damned quick. There's a certain level of banter and sarcasm allowed between friends and known colleagues, but strangers don't have that luxury, or shouldn't.