Why do programmers, in particular, seem to lose respect for others so quickly? Is it that ours is such a technical field that people often value 'straight-talki

Why do programmers, in particular, seem to lose respect for others so quickly? Is it that ours is such a technical field that people often value 'straight-talking' at the expense of politeness (see: Linus)? Is it that software is so difficult to do properly that almost everyone becomes embittered on some level? It's such a weird phenomena when you have things like open source which are fundamentally positive, cooperative forces in spirit. The same class of people who want to give their work away for free are the same people who bitterly attack others for doing that very thing.