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I believe the point is that the Linux community does nothing or even encourages non-destructive assholes. There's no shortage of assholes who are good at what t

by dalke 12y ago

I believe the point is that the Linux community does nothing or even encourages non-destructive assholes. There's no shortage of assholes who are good at what they do. Similarly, "drama queen" is a larger category than "drama queens which don't help solve problems but only create new ones." It's easily possible to be a drama queen who solves problems. Personally, I find it hard to read a quote like "[someone who decided to] read things ONE F*CKING BYTE AT A TIME with system calls for each byte should be retroactively aborted" and not see it as anything other than a exaggerated and dramatic statement, which kinda fits the definition of a drama queen. Do you think it is a normal and non-dramatic response to reading a byte at a time? The author also commented on your statement "otherwise Linux wouldn't be in the state it is" by writing "it's not an efficient way to run a community. If Linux had success, then that certainly happened __despite__, not because of this behaviour." Certainly there's any number of successful racist, sexist, or fill-in-the-blank-ist organizations. Success should not be used to justify bad behavior (except for certain cases where the discrimination is a bona fide reason for the success, such as hiring only women for a topless club - but you are not making the point that assholes and drama queens are required for the success of Linux). To do so is to commit the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

flohofwoe 12y ago
That was very well written, much better then I would be able to express myself in english :) From my personal experience working in software project teams (not so much open source projects), there's a certain type of personality which can destroy a team or a project. Usually this type of person is charismatic, convinced of him/herself that they can't do wrong, has only a few years of real-world development experience, is extremely touchy about criticism, takes everything personally (no matter how the criticism is communicated), and starts scheming inside and outside the team. That's my definition of 'destructive asshole' and 'drama queen'. I only encountered very few cases where such a person is really useful for the project, and I don't know people with decades of experience exposing such character traits. It's usually 'young whizkids fresh from university' (only a few of course!).
- dalke 12y ago
  Thank you for the compliment. I see you are considering only personalities which 'destroy a team or a project', which includes destructive assholes by definition. If you limit yourself to that personality type then certainly very few are useful to the project. But productive assholes are not destructive assholes, nor is being an asshole a universal character trait. A fan of sports team X can be a faithful friend to other fans of sports team X while being an asshole to all fans of rival sports team Y. A team member can be verbally abusive towards those who don't use the One True Brace Style, while being the primary architect for the system. That person is a productive asshole. That said, these people are usually called "difficult to work with", not "assholes". Calling a coworker an asshole usually makes it more difficult to work with them, not less.
  - flohofwoe 12y ago
    Good points. In my personal categorisation system, the people who endlessly discuss about brace style or system A being better then system B without either of them having any hard advantages over the other get the label 'religious zealots'. Also, while the amount of 'asshole-ness' in a character may be orthogonal to the quality of being a good programmer, I know no one personally who I would describe as a 'productive asshole', and I only ever had to deal with 2 or 3 true A-quality 'destructive assholes' in my whole carrier.
    - dalke 12y ago
      The thesis is that Torvalds is one such 'productive asshole'. Do you have any way to tell if someone is an asshole, assuming asshole-ness is mostly orthagonal to productivity? http://www.vice.com/read/orson-scott-card-is-officially-the-most-racist-sci-fi-author http://www.vice.com/read/orson-scott-card-is-officially-the-... describes Card as "a complete asshole and an unrepentant homophobe", and Card is a a productive and successful SF writer, so could also fall into the same category. It's hard to read about women doing scientific research 100 years ago without thinking that most of their male colleagues were assholes in how they treated women.

by dalke 12y ago

flohofwoe 12y ago

That was very well written, much better then I would be able to express myself in english :) From my personal experience working in software project teams (not so much open source projects), there's a certain type of personality which can destroy a team or a project. Usually this type of person is charismatic, convinced of him/herself that they can't do wrong, has only a few years of real-world development experience, is extremely touchy about criticism, takes everything personally (no matter how the criticism is communicated), and starts scheming inside and outside the team. That's my definition of 'destructive asshole' and 'drama queen'. I only encountered very few cases where such a person is really useful for the project, and I don't know people with decades of experience exposing such character traits. It's usually 'young whizkids fresh from university' (only a few of course!).

dalke 12y ago
Thank you for the compliment. I see you are considering only personalities which 'destroy a team or a project', which includes destructive assholes by definition. If you limit yourself to that personality type then certainly very few are useful to the project. But productive assholes are not destructive assholes, nor is being an asshole a universal character trait. A fan of sports team X can be a faithful friend to other fans of sports team X while being an asshole to all fans of rival sports team Y. A team member can be verbally abusive towards those who don't use the One True Brace Style, while being the primary architect for the system. That person is a productive asshole. That said, these people are usually called "difficult to work with", not "assholes". Calling a coworker an asshole usually makes it more difficult to work with them, not less.
- flohofwoe 12y ago
  Good points. In my personal categorisation system, the people who endlessly discuss about brace style or system A being better then system B without either of them having any hard advantages over the other get the label 'religious zealots'. Also, while the amount of 'asshole-ness' in a character may be orthogonal to the quality of being a good programmer, I know no one personally who I would describe as a 'productive asshole', and I only ever had to deal with 2 or 3 true A-quality 'destructive assholes' in my whole carrier.
  - dalke 12y ago
    The thesis is that Torvalds is one such 'productive asshole'. Do you have any way to tell if someone is an asshole, assuming asshole-ness is mostly orthagonal to productivity? http://www.vice.com/read/orson-scott-card-is-officially-the-most-racist-sci-fi-author http://www.vice.com/read/orson-scott-card-is-officially-the-... describes Card as "a complete asshole and an unrepentant homophobe", and Card is a a productive and successful SF writer, so could also fall into the same category. It's hard to read about women doing scientific research 100 years ago without thinking that most of their male colleagues were assholes in how they treated women.