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As someone who has never interacted with him, an interesting thing about Drepper on HN is that I see him linked in two contexts with diametrically opposite vale

As someone who has never interacted with him, an interesting thing about Drepper on HN is that I see him linked in two contexts with diametrically opposite valences: 1) short flamey exchanges on mailing lists or in bug-report threads; and 2) long and quite good articles, for example this one: https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/m/e/9/7/cpumemory.pdf https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/m/e/9/7/cpume...

angersock 12y ago
People skills and programming skills do not necessarily correlate. See also Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs.
- mitchty 12y ago
  Yep, he was notorious for ignoring any change to make things work for non x86 platforms with responses akin to "only x86 matters".
- beagle3 12y ago
  Linus Torvalds aces both programming and people skills, and in most senses Steve Jobs did too: They are(were) both dictators, but they mobilize(d) and co-ordinate(d) thousands of people into creating impressive bodies of work. I hold Torvalds in much, much higher regard than Jobs in this respect, because -- unlike Jobs who got co-operation and loyalty mostly in return for money, Torvalds has been able to do so without being the benefactor of the contributors he co-ordinates. Torvalds can and does write the occasional scathing email, and that's what makes the news and creates the impression - but he actually does that when it's needed to drive a point (and when asked about it he explained more than once - being subtle in a mailing list read by thousands simply does not work). Most of the time, he is a nice, considerate and appreciative. Torvalds has amazing people skills, even if occasionally he rubs some people the wrong way. I would say the same about Jobs, even if I disagree with his way. You just can't get thousands of people to do stuff, money or not, unless you have people skills. Drepper in his capacity as libc maintainer was none of this.
  - angersock 12y ago
    So, in the Jobs case, his programming skills/engineering skills were basically nonexistent. He had a lot of opinions, and had very good people skills, but he was a joke of an engineer.
    - SEJeff 12y ago
      Jobs was a designer, not an engineer. Wozniak was the software developer for Steve Jobs. It isn't that Steve Jobs was a joke of an engineer so much as Steve Jobs was not an engineer. He was a charismatic leader who inspires people to push themselves to and potentially past the breaking point. When you can inspire people to push themselves harder than they would push themselves normally, you tend to see a lot of greatness. The way he did it was basically to be a sociopath however, which is unfortunate for all who worked directly with him.
      - angersock 12y ago
        He was a con man and ripped Wozniak off during a stint working for Atari--while theoretically being an engineer. I'll stand by my statement.
  - _delirium 12y ago
    One thing that's reasonably forgivable about Torvalds' flames is that they tend to be directed at senior-ish people who he knows and who are mostly peers in the free-software community. That's a fairly different context than if he were flaming random newbies (or people who were his subordinates/employees). Also it's fairly rare, and you'll often see him engaging in a normal tone again further down in the same thread.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >unlike Jobs who got co-operation and loyalty mostly in return for money That's not really accurate. Other companies paid developers far more without getting the same results. Jobs also inspired people, if not as person (e.g could be a jerk) surely as someone with a specific vision people wanted to be part of.
  - 12y ago
- coldtea 12y ago
  Emm, those are not two guys that lacked "people skills". Quite the contrary, they managed to get thousands of people (and millions of users) to see and work for their vision. People skills != being polite and beloved by all. (Plus, Jobs didn't have much programming skills, if any, mostly business, understanding markets and knowing how to build products that matter skills).
Alupis 12y ago
In fairness -- after a short while, people began to actually intentionally provoke Drepper -- knowing the reaction that would come (re-opening old closed bug reports over and over and over and over, snarky remarks, general complaining in the bug tracking system instead of mailing lists, etc).

angersock 12y ago

People skills and programming skills do not necessarily correlate. See also Linus Torvalds and Steve Jobs.

mitchty 12y ago
Yep, he was notorious for ignoring any change to make things work for non x86 platforms with responses akin to "only x86 matters".
beagle3 12y ago
Linus Torvalds aces both programming and people skills, and in most senses Steve Jobs did too: They are(were) both dictators, but they mobilize(d) and co-ordinate(d) thousands of people into creating impressive bodies of work. I hold Torvalds in much, much higher regard than Jobs in this respect, because -- unlike Jobs who got co-operation and loyalty mostly in return for money, Torvalds has been able to do so without being the benefactor of the contributors he co-ordinates. Torvalds can and does write the occasional scathing email, and that's what makes the news and creates the impression - but he actually does that when it's needed to drive a point (and when asked about it he explained more than once - being subtle in a mailing list read by thousands simply does not work). Most of the time, he is a nice, considerate and appreciative. Torvalds has amazing people skills, even if occasionally he rubs some people the wrong way. I would say the same about Jobs, even if I disagree with his way. You just can't get thousands of people to do stuff, money or not, unless you have people skills. Drepper in his capacity as libc maintainer was none of this.
- angersock 12y ago
  So, in the Jobs case, his programming skills/engineering skills were basically nonexistent. He had a lot of opinions, and had very good people skills, but he was a joke of an engineer.
  - SEJeff 12y ago
    Jobs was a designer, not an engineer. Wozniak was the software developer for Steve Jobs. It isn't that Steve Jobs was a joke of an engineer so much as Steve Jobs was not an engineer. He was a charismatic leader who inspires people to push themselves to and potentially past the breaking point. When you can inspire people to push themselves harder than they would push themselves normally, you tend to see a lot of greatness. The way he did it was basically to be a sociopath however, which is unfortunate for all who worked directly with him.
    - angersock 12y ago
      He was a con man and ripped Wozniak off during a stint working for Atari--while theoretically being an engineer. I'll stand by my statement.
- _delirium 12y ago
  One thing that's reasonably forgivable about Torvalds' flames is that they tend to be directed at senior-ish people who he knows and who are mostly peers in the free-software community. That's a fairly different context than if he were flaming random newbies (or people who were his subordinates/employees). Also it's fairly rare, and you'll often see him engaging in a normal tone again further down in the same thread.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >unlike Jobs who got co-operation and loyalty mostly in return for money That's not really accurate. Other companies paid developers far more without getting the same results. Jobs also inspired people, if not as person (e.g could be a jerk) surely as someone with a specific vision people wanted to be part of.
- 12y ago
coldtea 12y ago
Emm, those are not two guys that lacked "people skills". Quite the contrary, they managed to get thousands of people (and millions of users) to see and work for their vision. People skills != being polite and beloved by all. (Plus, Jobs didn't have much programming skills, if any, mostly business, understanding markets and knowing how to build products that matter skills).

Alupis 12y ago

In fairness -- after a short while, people began to actually intentionally provoke Drepper -- knowing the reaction that would come (re-opening old closed bug reports over and over and over and over, snarky remarks, general complaining in the bug tracking system instead of mailing lists, etc).