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Linus Torvalds Receives 2014 IEEE Computer Pioneer Award
- caio1982 12y agoWell deserved, it would be really hard for anyone to debate his merit.
- jkldotio 12y agoWhile he'd been working with and thinking about the problem for a long time the speed at which Linus produced Git always amazes me: "development of Git began on 3 April 2005...On 16 June, the kernel 2.6.12 release was managed by Git...Torvalds turned over maintenance on 26 July 2005".[1] Perhaps he should have some more breaks for side projects. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Git_(software)
- riquito 12y agoDuring his speech at Google "[after reviewing the alternatives] the end results was I decided I can write something better than anything out there in two weeks. And I was right" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8&feature=youtu.be&t=12m16s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8&feature=youtu.be&...
- read 12y agoSomething's still not clear about his assumptions in that talk. He says "you just continue to work" and "you could do everything you would do" [if you were connected online]. But this is not true when it comes to integration of source control with issue-tracking. If you integrate source control with issue-tracking, you start to want source code changes to correspond to issue numbers, and changes to be pushed if an issue is in a certain state or owned by a specific developer. But you can't get this information when you are offline without access to the issue-tracker. Either there's a case for distributed issue-tracking too, which would give you that information, or issue-tracking being centralized pushes back on source control wanting to be distributed. I wish this was addressed in Git's assumptions.
- modeless 12y agoSounds like you want https://www.fossil-scm.org https://www.fossil-scm.org. Distributed version control with integrated wiki and bug tracking, from the creator of SQLite.
- selectnull 12y agoAnother option is Veracity by Sourcegear. http://veracity-scm.com/ http://veracity-scm.com/
- hrjet 12y agoTheir DVCS comparison page is very informative: http://veracity-scm.com/compare/ http://veracity-scm.com/compare/
- ithkuil 12y agohttps://github.com/schacon/ticgit/wiki https://github.com/schacon/ticgit/wiki YMMV
- mtdewcmu 12y agoI've been mulling over issue tracking lately, since I hate Jira and all the other ones I've used. Wouldn't issues being in states and having owners violate the distributed model? Version control used to have file owners and locks, which is the same thing, and git broke from that.
- zenbowman 12y agoYeah, that was a great talk. I highly recommend people watch it. He was definitely right about that, what I like about Linus is he really does seem to prefer to do things in as concrete and simple a way as possible instead of getting mired in abstractions.
- pags 12y agoIsn't he blurring the line between "commit" meaning creating a state you can roll back to (in all version control systems), and "commit" meaning pushing to the "official" code base in a non-distributed system? In other words, some issues with non-distributed systems that he highlights (having to keep an elite group deemed smart enough to integrate changes, for example) still exist when pushing to a consensus "official" instance of a distributed repo.
- jordigh 12y agoHis language is pretty muddled in this talk. It's clear he didn't really spend a lot of time thinking about precise and unambiguous language for all of the things he was talking about. He also seems to conflate "branch" and "clone". This muddled language later turned into a muddled UI that was supposed to get cleaned up, but never did.
- richardwhiuk 12y agoProbably because those two actions are identical in CVS, SVN etc, which most people at the talk were familiar with, unlike the commit and push states in a DVCS (hg, git, bzr etc).
- jordigh 12y agoWriting the basics of a DVCS in two weeks isn't a unique feat. Mercurial was created in almost exactly the same way, and was faster than git (and still is, e.g. for blame and clone operations) and actually was conceived with a UI from the beginning. I'm pretty sure the only reason git took most of the mind share instead of hg was (1) github (2) Linus admiration.
- codemac 12y agoWell, you're also missing some reasons: - git has an 'email' centric workflow - The index with git (git add -i) awesome for people doing patch maintenance - the rebase workflow is great when you want to maintain against an upstream that you expect someone other than you to commit your changes to, or you have a "pre-publish" phase. It's almost like those reasons follow the linux workflow.. almost perfectly.
- zurn 12y agoThose aren't big things outside Linux.
- throwaway7767 12y agoEmail centric workflows are used for lots of projects other than the linux kernel. My workflow for a lot of the projects I contribute to is something like: edit -> commit (repeat as necessary) -> rebase -i -> format-patch -> send patchset by email
- Argorak 12y ago> - git has an 'email' centric workflow Which is surprising, given how rough all the email-involving commands of git are. Badly documented (git-send-email man page doesn't even come close to documenting all options properly), awful error reporting and a badly explained (although, in itself, quite sane) workflow when sending the patches. When setting up my email setup, I consulted the underlying Perl script more than the docs :(.
- read 12y ago
- jonalmeida 12y agoHe mentions that git wasn't half as good if it wasn't for the help he got after his initial creation that made it cleaner and better.
- reledi 12y agoAccording to his recent save format post [1], he spends a lot of time thinking about something before he starts prototyping. > So I've been thinking about this for basically months, but the way I work, I actually want to have a good mental picture of what I'm doing before I start prototyping. And while I had a high-level notion of what I wanted, I didn't have enough of a idea of the details to really start coding. So two weeks seems reasonable to me, especially if he built a prototype first. (Did he?) 1: https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/X2XVf9Q7MfV https://plus.google.com/102150693225130002912/posts/X2XVf9Q7...
- legulere 12y agoI wonder how much thought he put into it before he started programming, especially as BitKeeper wasn't really uncontroversial earlier.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 12y agoGiven the git interface, one wishes it had been "a little more".
- tcheard 12y agoWhat exactly is wrong with the git interface?
- grannyg00se 12y agoParent is downvoted but this seems like a valid question to me. The interface consists of git sub commands and their flags. One could argue that there are too many flags, or even too many commands, but why not offer flexibility when you can as long as you keep sane defaults? I think that git commit, init, add, fetch, branch, checkout, merge, and push all have sane defaults and anybody can pick up very basic git usage using those commands in less than a few hours. Things get complicated when you start looking at the details, but I don't see any way around that. And the interface doesn't change. It's just a matter of learning more flags and commands.
- oneandoneis2 12y agoI've asked this a time or two, and the answers I've received so far have always boiled down to: "I don't know how to use git" or "I don't know how to alias complex commands I use frequently" Maybe you'll have better luck with the responses you get :)
- kasey_junk 12y agoI have tons of little problems with it that would be silly to enumerate, but they fall into 3 broad categories. 1) Terrible tab completion support. 2) Multiple command/option permutations that do nearly the same thing with small subtle differences. 3) Lack of cohesion amongst the community around best practices (especially with regards to branching/merging/rebasing).
- brongondwana 12y agoGiven all the kerfuffle about init systems, I'd love him to write a good small init process.
- vezzy-fnord 12y agoPretty sure finit is helping with that: http://troglobit.com/finit.html http://troglobit.com/finit.html That, and runit has been around for a while, though I don't know much about it.
- startling 12y agoIf he were to write an alternative, it would be given undue preference over others. He probably knows this.
- ithkuil 12y agoSome people would indeed prefer to have only one (benevolent) dictator.
- gkya 12y ago“Benevolent” is among the least becoming adjectives to Linus' dictatorship.
- droopyEyelids 12y agoI think you're confusing "benevolent" with "deferential" or "polite".
- kdd44 12y agoIt's sad that people get so hung up on bashing personality differences (not flaws) that they can't even see the much greater good that some people do. Politeness is just the toleration of stupidity and the acceptance of mediocrity.
- gkya 12y ago
- JustSomeNobody 12y agoBecause he likely doesn't spend half his time worrying about stupid crap like ORMs and DI frameworks.
- amaks 12y agoHer is great video from Google tech Talk starring Linus Torvalds (about Git): http://youtu.be/4XpnKHJAok8 http://youtu.be/4XpnKHJAok8. Note - Linus uses some strong language.
- JetSpiegel 12y ago> Note - Linus uses some strong language. That's a bit redundant.
- oneandoneis2 12y ago"Linus says things" would have been enough :)
- zhaphod 12y agoHow liberating it must feel to him to not give a damn about what anyone thinks about what he says. Good for him.
- morbius 12y agoOh boy, RMS is sure gonna be pissed about this...
- woopdy 12y agoHmm, maybe not. He received the "Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award (1998)".
- anaphor 12y agoPretty sure RMS would dislike the description: "Linus Torvalds, the principal force behind development of the Linux kernel and overseer of open source development for the Linux operating system"
- hevsuit 12y agoAt least the word "free" didn't appear in the description.
- laichzeit0 12y agoEveryone I tried explaining to that it's GNU/Linux has rolled their eyes at me like I'm some kind of pedantic madman. Then I gave up doing it and went back just calling it Linux. Potato, tomato. No one cares outside of the RMS cult.
- pessimizer 12y agoI call it Linux too, but the distinction becomes important when talking about Android.
- throwaway7767 12y agoIndeed. Ten years ago everyone made fun of Stallman for his insistence on calling it GNU/Linux (I was guilty of this as well). These days, with android so popular, it's very topical - I want GNU/Linux on my devices, not just linux.
- jacquesm 12y agoGiven the average time it takes for people to receive these Linus is getting it very early. Super nice to see his contribution recognized like this. It will be very interesting to see in a hundred years from now or so what will be the longest living contribution he's made, Linux or git. Looking through this list he is in very august company indeed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Pioneer_Award http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Pioneer_Award
- hevsuit 12y agoIndeed, DMR and John Mc Carthy are on the list too!
- return0 12y agoI sometimes wonder, as a though experiment how many $$B he would be worth based on the value he has co-created.
- dredmorbius 12y agoThat raises some interesting questions. First off, if Linux had a per-unit or similar usage charge, its adoption rate would all but certainly have been vastly lower. Factual basis: the many extant proprietary x86 Unix clones at the time Linux emerged. There's the question of how to value "use value", and what the value of an OS actually is. Impressions are (IMO deceptively) skewed upward by the example of Microsoft, but it's the rare instance of a software-only mass-market OS platform -- actually, rare to the point of single-instance. There's the question of what an ordinary or acceptable rate of return ought be. And there's the question of how much of the returns should be shared with others. Still, Linux as an enterprise might be compared with, say, IBM or Sun at their peak, possibly HP's server operations. There's the present valuations of Red Hat, Google, and Facebook, among other Internet companies based largely on Linux's capabilities. Certainly multiples of billions in a traditional sense -- I'd argue for $5 - $20b.
- IvyMike 12y agoIn an alternate universe where Linus Torvalds did not exist, I think one of the other free Unix clones would have gained more traction and filled that niche in the ecosystem. It would be interesting to peek into the universe where FreeBSD really struck it big. (And I'd also like to see the universe where Gnu HURD took over, although that seems a lot less likely.)
- atmosx 12y agoLinus at an interview said that "If I didn't create Linux in 1992, by 1993 someone else would have done it. Linux was created because the time was right, the GNU ecosystem was there. The kernel was the missing part". Of course this is kind of speculation on one hand, but there was the Hurd project which might have taken off, or someone else could really have created something similar a year later, if it did not exist. BSD had it's licensing issues, which today seems more liberating - most programmers seem to embrace it - but in 1992 was seen a free ride license which is something most Linux developers did not like. That's why Linux grew so much,. Saying that FreeBSD would taken that niche seems a little bit off IMHO.
- michaelchum 12y agoI'm surprised this IEEE article didn't even mention Git
- elwin 12y agoThe award is given for contributions made at least 15 years in the past. Git wouldn't have been a factor in their decision.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Nux 12y agoWell deserved, Linus is a revolutionary (along with the people that backed him up). Linux and git have radically changed the face of technology.
- motters 12y agoI'm not sure that it's a great idea to keep giving Linus prizes. He probably already has quite a collection of them. Instead I think some of the other kernel maintainers should get prizes.
- yitchelle 12y agoAs great as Linus is to the development of Linux. The prize is for his contribution to the computer science at large, not for Linux. However, you are right in that the main contributors to the Linux kernel should get a mention in the blurb.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]