4 ms·

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Does the end justifies the means? Should we allow us to have dick developers because the come up with great code? My

by eljojo 12y ago

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. Does the end justifies the means? Should we allow us to have dick developers because the come up with great code? My moral says no, but my craving for progress says yes. It's a battle that's been driving me nuts for a long time. Incidentally, this kind of incidents might slow down progress in the long term. update: by this kind of incidents i mean him being an asshole, not people telling on him. update 2: i don't endorse his behaviour.

efaref 12y ago
People seem to think that you should not be allowed to do something if someone else finds it rude or immoral. I think censoring people like Linus when they are clearly using hyperbole or other figures of speech is rude and immoral. Now what do we do?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- efaref 12y ago
  I guess the answer is to just continue ignoring and censoring people whose opinions we don't like. I'm cool with that.
cjbprime 12y ago
> Should we allow us to have dick developers because the come up with great code? Even if we're making this "the only thing that matters is how great the code is" argument, there are good arguments against allowing people to be hostile. You never know whether the size of your developer community could be larger. If you're turning 10 expert but conflict-averse developers away for every one asshole genius, it is unlikely that your code output/quality is being maximized. There's no shortage of people -- even people who are paid to hack on the kernel every day! -- who say that they refuse to engage with the upstream community due to the hostility they expect to receive or have received.
- Kalium 12y ago
  The key thing is that size is not the most important measure of a dev community. A larger community of low-skill low-time-commitment devs may be substantially less valuable in practical terms than a few highly skilled and highly committed devs. There's also the question of if the people to whom you refer would change their behavior if the item they point to was removed. As we all know, what people say they will do and what people actually do often diverge.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
digi_owl 12y ago
If you look across history, genius and caustic personalities seem to go hand in hand. Only that Torvalds is venting on a public and logged mailing list, while in previous times it was mostly stated verbally in private conversation.
protomyth 12y ago
I have remarked here multiple times that I regard "the end justifies the means" as the perfect definition of evil, but I'm not sure that is what's going on here. I don't think Linus or Theo are inherently dicks. They actually seem to be awfully nice guys for the most part. Unfortunately, we seem to have a generation of people that cannot take the hint that their code needs work or they just don't seem to pay attention to what is going on. I'm not sure if its a symptom of rapidly developing code and then fixing it later. Most BDFLs are under stress and need to set clear boundaries. It seems like people only pay attention to the bombastic and not the subtle.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > I have remarked here multiple times that I regard "the end justifies the means" as the perfect definition of evil I personally disagree with this definition; for me "end justifies the means" sounds like a perfectly rational conclusion, but not for humans - it's too common a failure mode for a man to follow this maxim, and it almost always ends bad; hence we have that saying. > Unfortunately, we seem to have a generation of people that cannot take the hint that their code needs work or they just don't seem to pay attention to what is going on. I agree. Moreover, I think we have a generation of people who like to take offense at anything and everything, mostly for signalling reasons. "I am offended by what you wrote, therefore I am a better person and you are wrong".
  - protomyth 12y ago
    > I personally disagree with this definition; for me "end justifies the means" sounds like a perfectly rational conclusion, but not for humans - it's too common a failure mode for a man to follow this maxim, and it almost always ends bad; hence we have that saying. I have never heard a person use that phrase and not violate the rights of other humans and their own morality. It is the gateway phrase people use to justify some act that they admit, by using that phrase, is not honorable. It's the phrase you say right before walking on that road paved with all those good intentions.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
Kalium 12y ago
A better question, perhaps, is if a warm, accepting, sensitive community produces technically superior products. A community that is all those things is of immense social value to those who feel accepted as a result, but warm fuzzies aren't the same as working software.

by eljojo 12y ago

efaref 12y ago

People seem to think that you should not be allowed to do something if someone else finds it rude or immoral. I think censoring people like Linus when they are clearly using hyperbole or other figures of speech is rude and immoral. Now what do we do?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
efaref 12y ago
I guess the answer is to just continue ignoring and censoring people whose opinions we don't like. I'm cool with that.

cjbprime 12y ago

> Should we allow us to have dick developers because the come up with great code? Even if we're making this "the only thing that matters is how great the code is" argument, there are good arguments against allowing people to be hostile. You never know whether the size of your developer community could be larger. If you're turning 10 expert but conflict-averse developers away for every one asshole genius, it is unlikely that your code output/quality is being maximized. There's no shortage of people -- even people who are paid to hack on the kernel every day! -- who say that they refuse to engage with the upstream community due to the hostility they expect to receive or have received.

Kalium 12y ago
The key thing is that size is not the most important measure of a dev community. A larger community of low-skill low-time-commitment devs may be substantially less valuable in practical terms than a few highly skilled and highly committed devs. There's also the question of if the people to whom you refer would change their behavior if the item they point to was removed. As we all know, what people say they will do and what people actually do often diverge.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

digi_owl 12y ago

If you look across history, genius and caustic personalities seem to go hand in hand. Only that Torvalds is venting on a public and logged mailing list, while in previous times it was mostly stated verbally in private conversation.

protomyth 12y ago

I have remarked here multiple times that I regard "the end justifies the means" as the perfect definition of evil, but I'm not sure that is what's going on here. I don't think Linus or Theo are inherently dicks. They actually seem to be awfully nice guys for the most part. Unfortunately, we seem to have a generation of people that cannot take the hint that their code needs work or they just don't seem to pay attention to what is going on. I'm not sure if its a symptom of rapidly developing code and then fixing it later. Most BDFLs are under stress and need to set clear boundaries. It seems like people only pay attention to the bombastic and not the subtle.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
> I have remarked here multiple times that I regard "the end justifies the means" as the perfect definition of evil I personally disagree with this definition; for me "end justifies the means" sounds like a perfectly rational conclusion, but not for humans - it's too common a failure mode for a man to follow this maxim, and it almost always ends bad; hence we have that saying. > Unfortunately, we seem to have a generation of people that cannot take the hint that their code needs work or they just don't seem to pay attention to what is going on. I agree. Moreover, I think we have a generation of people who like to take offense at anything and everything, mostly for signalling reasons. "I am offended by what you wrote, therefore I am a better person and you are wrong".
- protomyth 12y ago
  > I personally disagree with this definition; for me "end justifies the means" sounds like a perfectly rational conclusion, but not for humans - it's too common a failure mode for a man to follow this maxim, and it almost always ends bad; hence we have that saying. I have never heard a person use that phrase and not violate the rights of other humans and their own morality. It is the gateway phrase people use to justify some act that they admit, by using that phrase, is not honorable. It's the phrase you say right before walking on that road paved with all those good intentions.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago

Kalium 12y ago

A better question, perhaps, is if a warm, accepting, sensitive community produces technically superior products. A community that is all those things is of immense social value to those who feel accepted as a result, but warm fuzzies aren't the same as working software.