8 ms·

To this day, I still think of Joyent's CTO as Bryan "Girl Kisser" Cantrill.

by thristian 12y ago

feld 12y ago
And now I will too :-)
- sokoloff 12y ago
  For those who don't know the reference: https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.sun.hardware/msg/242387aeaa5b5456 https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.sun.hardware/msg/24...
  - feld 12y ago
    it was also linked to in the actual article :-)
nailer 12y ago
If you read Dave Miller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Miller)'s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Miller)'s post that Cantrill responds to (http://cryptnet.net/mirrors/texts/kissedagirl.html http://cryptnet.net/mirrors/texts/kissedagirl.html), it's a really well researched critique of Solaris SPARC performance, justifying the existence of a port of the Linux kernel for that platform. Cantrill's job title was 'Solaris Performance', so Sun and Cantrill looked pretty poor by responding with a personal attack.
wtbob 12y ago
He's also the guy who's stated that he would fire an employee for using proper English: https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun Seems like an utterly charming fellow.
- Someone1234 12y ago
  That's actually worse than his "Kiss a girl" gaffe. Hard to believe anyone thinks this person should be in charge of anything. They seem to lack both professionalism and maturity. Plus they jump to all kinds of wild (frankly bonkers) conclusion just as the result of someone thinking it should be "he" and "she" rather than "they" or "it." > To me, that insistence can only come from one place: that gender—specifically, masculinity—is inextricably linked to software, and that's not an attitude that Joyent tolerates. ... I don't even... I hope he never discovers popular fiction, he might have some kind of mental breakdown with all the "gendered pronouns" (assuming his current state isn't already the result of some kind of mental breakdown).
  - angersock 12y ago
    Why is it hard to believe? He is a technically-skilled person, working on a tech project. Who cares about professionalism and maturity when the code works?
- luckydude 12y ago
  I know Bryan pretty well (we're both ex Sun people). He's not as bad as he can sound (coming from me that's sort of amusing, I've got a bit of a rep as being annoying :) Bryan is a really smart guy, a lot of depth in systems, both software and hardware. He was also incredibly pro-Sun. I remember spending a day with him in San Francisco, he was still at Sun, I was elsewhere. We had a long discussion about operating systems and hardware that was a lot of fun. Until we got to Solaris and SPARC. He just refused to hear anything negative about either. I tried to point out that Intel was ahead and he just wouldn't hear it. I think he let loyalty to his company get ahead of the truth and that was weird.
  - bcantrill 12y ago
    Not that you aren't frequently a victim of the same, but you're rewriting history a bit here -- I was actually one of the most vocal proponents of x86 within Sun, especially with respect to trying to get the SPARC guys to understand just how deeply non-competitive their microprocessors had become. And to give you my decades-old Rashomon-like account of the day you're referring to, it is my recollection was that I tried to convince you that technologies that we were developing like ZFS and DTrace had technological merit, but you felt so venomous towards Solaris that you simply couldn't hear it. So perhaps we each heard what we thought we wanted to hear. ;)
    - luckydude 12y ago
      Hey Bryan, you could be right, I never really got over the Solaris thing. It was such a step backwards (at the time, it had none of the Sun goodness that was in SunOS). So maybe I heard it wrong. But at the time it seemed like you had a blind spot for anything Sun. Which resonated with me on the passion part but not so much on the lets make things better part. Sounds like you got past that.
      - bcantrill 12y ago
        I can only imagine the fury over the stupid decision to replace SunOS with Solaris: it was corporate wrong-headedness at its absolute worst, and the company was lucky to have survived it at all. I did love Sun[1] (the good parts, anyway) -- and I'm eternally grateful that we managed to get the system open sourced before the ship went under the waves. I still use DTrace, ZFS, zones, etc. every day[2], and that is thanks in no small part to your vision -- had it only been heeded in a more timely fashion! [1] http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2010/07/25/good-bye-sun/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2010/07/25/good-bye-sun/ [2] https://smartos.org/ https://smartos.org/
- thaumaturgy 12y ago
  "them/they" is also proper English, and although he and I might differ on how firm we are about the usage of pronouns, I agree with most of what he wrote there and think it's commendable that he's trying to make at least a small difference. At least one chapter of Beautiful Code that I can recall used the random he/she pronoun strategy, and it's distracting and hard to follow. Making software development sound less overwhelmingly masculine is probably a good idea.
mwcampbell 12y ago
Can we not forgive and forget a single, isolated mistake made many years ago? I'm sure bcantrill has already been punished quite enough for that one mistake.
- jclulow 12y ago
  The Internet is not especially forgiving. This is a good case study in why it's probably not ideal to quote (especially unattributed) snippets of popular culture[1] to try and convey deeper feelings -- especially frustration -- when you cannot read the room. [1] http://www.screeninsults.com/saturday-night-live-get-a-life.php http://www.screeninsults.com/saturday-night-live-get-a-life....
- emmelaich 12y ago
  Am I the only one who doesn't read it as an insult? I thought it was a funny way of conceding David Miller's points. A sort of not conceding but actually really conceding and putting on an ironic attempt to save face. A mimicking of a kids retort when he/she knows they've been beaten in a game or argument. Oh yeah? Yeah? Well *you* smell!
- thristian 12y ago
  I should clarify: I'm not hurt or offended by bcantrill's words, and the commercial success of Linux in the intervening years speaks more than any verbal response ever could. On the other hand, even as a Linux advocate I found bcantrill's post freakin' hilarious. There are very few times when the universe gives you a perfect opportunity for a snappy retort, so I can't blame him for seizing the moment. While it's probably not bcantrill's favourite memory, I think that moment deserves to be remembered and respected for its comedic value, if nothing else.
- chris_wot 12y ago
  I don't know... can Bryan stop threatening to fire employees he doesn't employ because they reverted a non-gender neutral pronoun?

To this day, I still think of Joyent's CTO as Bryan "Girl Kisser" Cantrill.

feld 12y ago

And now I will too :-)

sokoloff 12y ago
For those who don't know the reference: https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.sun.hardware/msg/242387aeaa5b5456 https://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.sun.hardware/msg/24...
- feld 12y ago
  it was also linked to in the actual article :-)

nailer 12y ago

If you read Dave Miller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Miller)'s http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_S._Miller)'s post that Cantrill responds to (http://cryptnet.net/mirrors/texts/kissedagirl.html http://cryptnet.net/mirrors/texts/kissedagirl.html), it's a really well researched critique of Solaris SPARC performance, justifying the existence of a port of the Linux kernel for that platform. Cantrill's job title was 'Solaris Performance', so Sun and Cantrill looked pretty poor by responding with a personal attack.

wtbob 12y ago

He's also the guy who's stated that he would fire an employee for using proper English: https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun Seems like an utterly charming fellow.

Someone1234 12y ago
That's actually worse than his "Kiss a girl" gaffe. Hard to believe anyone thinks this person should be in charge of anything. They seem to lack both professionalism and maturity. Plus they jump to all kinds of wild (frankly bonkers) conclusion just as the result of someone thinking it should be "he" and "she" rather than "they" or "it." > To me, that insistence can only come from one place: that gender—specifically, masculinity—is inextricably linked to software, and that's not an attitude that Joyent tolerates. ... I don't even... I hope he never discovers popular fiction, he might have some kind of mental breakdown with all the "gendered pronouns" (assuming his current state isn't already the result of some kind of mental breakdown).
- angersock 12y ago
  Why is it hard to believe? He is a technically-skilled person, working on a tech project. Who cares about professionalism and maturity when the code works?
luckydude 12y ago
I know Bryan pretty well (we're both ex Sun people). He's not as bad as he can sound (coming from me that's sort of amusing, I've got a bit of a rep as being annoying :) Bryan is a really smart guy, a lot of depth in systems, both software and hardware. He was also incredibly pro-Sun. I remember spending a day with him in San Francisco, he was still at Sun, I was elsewhere. We had a long discussion about operating systems and hardware that was a lot of fun. Until we got to Solaris and SPARC. He just refused to hear anything negative about either. I tried to point out that Intel was ahead and he just wouldn't hear it. I think he let loyalty to his company get ahead of the truth and that was weird.
- bcantrill 12y ago
  Not that you aren't frequently a victim of the same, but you're rewriting history a bit here -- I was actually one of the most vocal proponents of x86 within Sun, especially with respect to trying to get the SPARC guys to understand just how deeply non-competitive their microprocessors had become. And to give you my decades-old Rashomon-like account of the day you're referring to, it is my recollection was that I tried to convince you that technologies that we were developing like ZFS and DTrace had technological merit, but you felt so venomous towards Solaris that you simply couldn't hear it. So perhaps we each heard what we thought we wanted to hear. ;)
  - luckydude 12y ago
    Hey Bryan, you could be right, I never really got over the Solaris thing. It was such a step backwards (at the time, it had none of the Sun goodness that was in SunOS). So maybe I heard it wrong. But at the time it seemed like you had a blind spot for anything Sun. Which resonated with me on the passion part but not so much on the lets make things better part. Sounds like you got past that.
    - bcantrill 12y ago
      I can only imagine the fury over the stupid decision to replace SunOS with Solaris: it was corporate wrong-headedness at its absolute worst, and the company was lucky to have survived it at all. I did love Sun[1] (the good parts, anyway) -- and I'm eternally grateful that we managed to get the system open sourced before the ship went under the waves. I still use DTrace, ZFS, zones, etc. every day[2], and that is thanks in no small part to your vision -- had it only been heeded in a more timely fashion! [1] http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2010/07/25/good-bye-sun/ http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2010/07/25/good-bye-sun/ [2] https://smartos.org/ https://smartos.org/
thaumaturgy 12y ago
"them/they" is also proper English, and although he and I might differ on how firm we are about the usage of pronouns, I agree with most of what he wrote there and think it's commendable that he's trying to make at least a small difference. At least one chapter of Beautiful Code that I can recall used the random he/she pronoun strategy, and it's distracting and hard to follow. Making software development sound less overwhelmingly masculine is probably a good idea.

mwcampbell 12y ago

Can we not forgive and forget a single, isolated mistake made many years ago? I'm sure bcantrill has already been punished quite enough for that one mistake.

jclulow 12y ago
The Internet is not especially forgiving. This is a good case study in why it's probably not ideal to quote (especially unattributed) snippets of popular culture[1] to try and convey deeper feelings -- especially frustration -- when you cannot read the room. [1] http://www.screeninsults.com/saturday-night-live-get-a-life.php http://www.screeninsults.com/saturday-night-live-get-a-life....
emmelaich 12y ago
Am I the only one who doesn't read it as an insult? I thought it was a funny way of conceding David Miller's points. A sort of not conceding but actually really conceding and putting on an ironic attempt to save face. A mimicking of a kids retort when he/she knows they've been beaten in a game or argument. Oh yeah? Yeah? Well *you* smell!
thristian 12y ago
I should clarify: I'm not hurt or offended by bcantrill's words, and the commercial success of Linux in the intervening years speaks more than any verbal response ever could. On the other hand, even as a Linux advocate I found bcantrill's post freakin' hilarious. There are very few times when the universe gives you a perfect opportunity for a snappy retort, so I can't blame him for seizing the moment. While it's probably not bcantrill's favourite memory, I think that moment deserves to be remembered and respected for its comedic value, if nothing else.
chris_wot 12y ago
I don't know... can Bryan stop threatening to fire employees he doesn't employ because they reverted a non-gender neutral pronoun?