4 ms·

I dream of working for/with someone like Linus Torvalds. Seriously. There is absolutely no pretense here, no guessing, no fakery. If you work with Linus, you

by Zikes 13y ago

I dream of working for/with someone like Linus Torvalds. Seriously. There is absolutely no pretense here, no guessing, no fakery. If you work with Linus, you know exactly where you stand. He doesn't hold anything back, including criticisms that are critical to your own growth as a developer. And there can be no question - NONE - that what he does WORKS. Linux is on BILLIONS of devices worldwide, affecting BILLIONS of peoples' lives in as literal a sense as can be imagined. You have to be strict about that sort of software, you have to be hard, you have to have a very sharp edge, and you absolutely cannot afford to make mistakes. You don't have to like it, and you don't have to agree with it, but you certainly don't walk into Linus Torvalds' kitchen and tell him it's too hot.

tptacek 13y ago
How many of those billions of installs were enabled by Torvalds telling Mauro Carvalho Chehab to "SHUT THE FUCK UP" after Mauro tried to explain a previous patch? Try to be as specific as you can, thanks.
- Zikes 13y ago
  All of them, and you're welcome.
- johnbm 13y ago
  How many of the people whining about this problem have ever submitted a Linux kernel patch or considered it and said they wouldn't because of him? Name names, thanks.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Do your own research. Various mailing lists are littered with the names of people who've dropped out because of toxic working environment.
  - thesnider 13y ago
    I will never submit a patch to the linux kernel, specifically, and only, because I cannot support Linus's attitude towards mailing list discussions.
jlgreco 13y ago
I feel similarly. People who are willing to be blunt with others are something of a dying breed in many social circles. I actively attempt to surround myself with people who communicate like Linus. When I use to do farmwork, there was no shortage of people like this. If you did something wrong, you heard about swiftly and clearly. That clarity wasn't limited to just informational content, the person delivering the news made a point of making sure you got the message, that requires clarity on an emotional level too. You don't get "Dear, please don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest."; you get a string of profanity and information so clear and targeted that I am unable to give it a fair representation. In that culture the "familiar" tone that people used with each other was a symptom of mutual respect. You wouldn't "baby" people that you respected.
- johnchristopher 13y ago
  You don't get clarity on an emotional level when being cursed and yelled at. You get into fight or flight mode. You get into danger mode. "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is perfectly fine.* You really are demonstrating and promoting the "yell on my employee to make them work better" attitude that just don't work on the long-term. * Anecdote: My grand-father decided to take evening studies after the war to get out of this blue collar mentality of cursing and not getting much more done. He rose from one social ladder to the next and always made it clear the senseless profanity, bravado and fake expertise (the fuck do you need an expert to lift haystack or push wagon in the mines as he did in his 20's was his conclusion) was what he was fleeing from. And the fact they could be pretty good at back-stabbing too. There is no respect in insulting someone else when trying to convene information. Are we going to have that bro-grammer fad all over again ?
  - Zikes 13y ago
    "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is NOT perfectly fine if it does not sufficiently drive the importance of that sentence home. jlgreco's example of working on a farm is incredibly relevant because one tiny mistake on a farm can literally cost the lives of anyone or everyone in the family. If you're working on a tractor and you get something remotely wrong then suddenly you can't harvest this season, and everyone is broke and starving. Or the tractor falls and kills you and anyone else working under it. One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again.
seivan 13y ago
Same here. I just hope I won't cry myself to sleep.
anonymfus 13y ago
>If you have a phone, there's a >92% chance it's running Linux. >http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24108913 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24108913 >Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems (OS) worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 What?! iOS is not Linux, smartphone market is not all phone market and shipments/marketshare is not equal to usage share.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Fair point. Lets go with this instead. 92.3% of all smartphones are connected to projects headed (present or past tense) by blunt 'assholes' who have hurt many feelings.
- Zikes 13y ago
  Good point, line removed.
rambojohnson 13y ago
I can't stand it when fanboy'ish trumps the point being made around here, especially with regard to jobs and torvalds and their unprofessionalism toward their employees. nobody is saying linux isn't a major contribution to the world. linus is an unprofessional asshole. bottom line.
- Zikes 13y ago
  1. Torvalds doesn't employ anyone to work on the kernel, it's an open source project not a company. Sarah and everyone else on that mailing list are volunteers. 2. Professionalism means different things to different people, and in Linus's case it means being uncompromising in his expectations of the people he allows to work on his code. 3. Yes, he's an asshole. He wears that badge with pride (just look up the origination of the name for "git"), but he's also been an asshole for the past twenty years or so. I think people ought to know what they're getting into by now, and if not then it's their own fault. 4. He has the right to run his project how he sees fit, and so far that's working pretty damn well. Would that work for me? No. Would it work for you? Probably not. Does it work for what is potentially the most important software contribution to the world? Yes, it most certainly does. And that's the bottom line.
  - rambojohnson 13y ago
    | 2. Professionalism means different things to different people, and in Linus's case it means being uncompromising in his expectations of the people he allows to work on his code. by yelling and cursing at them... anyone with enough self-respect and high enough self esteem wouldn't work a day for a guy like that. I don't care what the cause/product. | 4. He has the right to run his project how he sees fit, and so far that's working pretty damn well. yes, I use to work for a company that had primadona dev leads who'd yell and demean their junior and senior devs in public about checking in bugs against apps that were also working pretty damn well. we also had a revolving door (lowest employee retention of all the other departments) for developers in the company.

by Zikes 13y ago

tptacek 13y ago

How many of those billions of installs were enabled by Torvalds telling Mauro Carvalho Chehab to "SHUT THE FUCK UP" after Mauro tried to explain a previous patch? Try to be as specific as you can, thanks.

Zikes 13y ago
All of them, and you're welcome.
johnbm 13y ago
How many of the people whining about this problem have ever submitted a Linux kernel patch or considered it and said they wouldn't because of him? Name names, thanks.
- DanBC 13y ago
  Do your own research. Various mailing lists are littered with the names of people who've dropped out because of toxic working environment.
- thesnider 13y ago
  I will never submit a patch to the linux kernel, specifically, and only, because I cannot support Linus's attitude towards mailing list discussions.

jlgreco 13y ago

I feel similarly. People who are willing to be blunt with others are something of a dying breed in many social circles. I actively attempt to surround myself with people who communicate like Linus. When I use to do farmwork, there was no shortage of people like this. If you did something wrong, you heard about swiftly and clearly. That clarity wasn't limited to just informational content, the person delivering the news made a point of making sure you got the message, that requires clarity on an emotional level too. You don't get "Dear, please don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest."; you get a string of profanity and information so clear and targeted that I am unable to give it a fair representation. In that culture the "familiar" tone that people used with each other was a symptom of mutual respect. You wouldn't "baby" people that you respected.

johnchristopher 13y ago
You don't get clarity on an emotional level when being cursed and yelled at. You get into fight or flight mode. You get into danger mode. "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is perfectly fine.* You really are demonstrating and promoting the "yell on my employee to make them work better" attitude that just don't work on the long-term. * Anecdote: My grand-father decided to take evening studies after the war to get out of this blue collar mentality of cursing and not getting much more done. He rose from one social ladder to the next and always made it clear the senseless profanity, bravado and fake expertise (the fuck do you need an expert to lift haystack or push wagon in the mines as he did in his 20's was his conclusion) was what he was fleeing from. And the fact they could be pretty good at back-stabbing too. There is no respect in insulting someone else when trying to convene information. Are we going to have that bro-grammer fad all over again ?
- Zikes 13y ago
  "Please, don't loosen that bolt until you jack up the rest." is NOT perfectly fine if it does not sufficiently drive the importance of that sentence home. jlgreco's example of working on a farm is incredibly relevant because one tiny mistake on a farm can literally cost the lives of anyone or everyone in the family. If you're working on a tractor and you get something remotely wrong then suddenly you can't harvest this season, and everyone is broke and starving. Or the tractor falls and kills you and anyone else working under it. One thing's for certain, if you get caught doing something wrong in that situation, you're going to get an earful and it will most certainly NOT happen again.

seivan 13y ago

Same here. I just hope I won't cry myself to sleep.

anonymfus 13y ago

>If you have a phone, there's a >92% chance it's running Linux. >http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24108913 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24108913 >Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems (OS) worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 What?! iOS is not Linux, smartphone market is not all phone market and shipments/marketshare is not equal to usage share.

jlgreco 13y ago
Fair point. Lets go with this instead. 92.3% of all smartphones are connected to projects headed (present or past tense) by blunt 'assholes' who have hurt many feelings.
Zikes 13y ago
Good point, line removed.

rambojohnson 13y ago

I can't stand it when fanboy'ish trumps the point being made around here, especially with regard to jobs and torvalds and their unprofessionalism toward their employees. nobody is saying linux isn't a major contribution to the world. linus is an unprofessional asshole. bottom line.

Zikes 13y ago
1. Torvalds doesn't employ anyone to work on the kernel, it's an open source project not a company. Sarah and everyone else on that mailing list are volunteers. 2. Professionalism means different things to different people, and in Linus's case it means being uncompromising in his expectations of the people he allows to work on his code. 3. Yes, he's an asshole. He wears that badge with pride (just look up the origination of the name for "git"), but he's also been an asshole for the past twenty years or so. I think people ought to know what they're getting into by now, and if not then it's their own fault. 4. He has the right to run his project how he sees fit, and so far that's working pretty damn well. Would that work for me? No. Would it work for you? Probably not. Does it work for what is potentially the most important software contribution to the world? Yes, it most certainly does. And that's the bottom line.
- rambojohnson 13y ago
  | 2. Professionalism means different things to different people, and in Linus's case it means being uncompromising in his expectations of the people he allows to work on his code. by yelling and cursing at them... anyone with enough self-respect and high enough self esteem wouldn't work a day for a guy like that. I don't care what the cause/product. | 4. He has the right to run his project how he sees fit, and so far that's working pretty damn well. yes, I use to work for a company that had primadona dev leads who'd yell and demean their junior and senior devs in public about checking in bugs against apps that were also working pretty damn well. we also had a revolving door (lowest employee retention of all the other departments) for developers in the company.