6 ms·

Less Kanye West and more Linus. And I'm of the opinion that an attitude and approach like Linus' is fine - if you're Linus. I think it's sort of made its way

by nkozyra 12y ago

Less Kanye West and more Linus. And I'm of the opinion that an attitude and approach like Linus' is fine - if you're Linus. I think it's sort of made its way around as the way to act if you know what you're doing and that's a shame. I know a lot of great devs who are lost in the shuffle for not being boisterous enough.

bsder 12y ago
> And I'm of the opinion that an attitude and approach like Linus' is fine - if you're Linus. I'm of the opinion that it's not. And, it provides a really poor example to the younger people in the field. I've known a lot of programmers. Many of them far smarter than Linus. Funnily enough, the better they were; the nicer they were.
- EpicEng 12y ago
  I don't think you know anything about Linus beyond his widely publicized outbursts (Which also means you have no idea how smart, or not, he is).
  - moomin 12y ago
    OMG is he a 10x engineer? 11??? Seriously, there's no productivity benchmark beyond which you shouldn't treat people with respect. There are broken cultures where you can get away with it, but you'll still be an asshole. Linus is an asshole not because it's some deep essential part of his nature, he's an asshole because people give him a free pass.
    - pyre 12y ago
      Parent post was asking whether your knowledge of how much of an "asshole" Linus is comes from only reading the publicized outbursts, and not interacting on a day to day basis. While it's not preferable, I think that we can be understanding of the fact that people can sometimes have outbursts due to stressors in their life. That said, whenever I've seen people bashing a Linus outburst, I've gone and read said outburst. It's never as bad as the "tech press" make it out to be.
      - anon1385 12y ago
        >While it's not preferable, I think that we can be understanding of the fact that people can sometimes have outbursts due to stressors in their life. Sure. The question is, do the rest of us treat those incidents as mistakes where somebody went over the line and behaved poorly, or do we defend the behaviour and even try to argue that it's a sign of good project management that should be emulated because it 'tells it like it is' and keeps away the 'idiots'? Sadly the latter is a common attitude, as seen in other comments in this thread.
    - raverbashing 12y ago
      I'm not sure, but given his cultural background, I'd say he's less of an asshole than most people think he is. The level of rudeness in conversation is very dependent on cultural background and those ignoring it display cultural insensitiveness Europeans are more straightforward than Canadians and Indians where everything is said in a mild passive-aggressive tone that goes nowhere.
      - wutbrodo 12y ago
        I understand and have experienced what you're talking about, but I don't think it gets to the meat of what people dislike about the way Linus (occasionally) communicates with people. Being more straightforward as in "no that's a dumb idea because X" may put people off, but can be chalked up to "cultural differences in communication". This doesn't really apply to the kinda stuff Linus has said that people complain about: "Mauro SHUT THE FUCK UP" "I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. " "fix your approach to kernel programming." "There aren't enough swear-words in the English language, so now I'll have to call you perkeleen vittupää just to express my disgust and frustration with this crap." It's ridiculous to claim that that's just avoiding unnecessary civility. Those statements aren't "blunt", they're just him being a dick.
        raverbashing 12y ago
        While they are blunt and I don't disagree about "him being a dick" written communication is very different from spoken ones, I can imagine someone using such words in a certain context and they sound less harsh. But in the written medium it really come across is the most harsh way. But while maintaining the kernel sometimes he needs to get the point across and saying "this is unacceptable, I am disappointed" will not work. For those examples, when reading the context I (usually) agree with Linus (and with his attitude), and this usually happens when the situation has been building up and people keep repeating those mistakes. Also, there are people much worse than Linus on the LKML (and subsystem lists), also some people are very polite and helpful.
        icebraining 12y ago
    - ncza 12y ago
      I think you should treat Linus with more respect.
    - agumonkey 12y ago
      It's also a mass communication strategy. Concise and harsh. No time wasted.
    - wvh 12y ago
      Linus has a sense of humour that is often misunderstood, especially by the PC crowd. Abrasiveness is an innate Finnish quality. Just think you're in a Monty Python sketch.
    - topynate 12y ago
      What are you proposing? Because if it involves preventing him posting to mailing lists or restricting his contributions to kernel development I'm against, and on pretty fundamental ethical principles: you appear to think there's a deontological injunction against permitting someone to do harm by disrespecting others, whereas I think that harm should be weighed against the benefits that would be lost thereby. I also think that your opinion on why Linus behaves as he does is wishful thinking, sorry. There's a decent chance he'd take his ball and go home if the above were done. That would be bad.
- venomsnake 12y ago
  Linus is nice ... I have not seen him being jerk just for jerkness. But if you cannot take having a new one teared when you do something stupid - you are in the wrong field. Bullshit, stupidity and thin-skinniness should not be tolerated.
  - toothbrush 12y ago
    Just my €0.02, but i think it's precisely the "new ones" that should be treated carefully. The kernel (or whatever other FOSS project) won't develop itself, so it's purely economically bad strategy to scare off newcomers who might well turn out to be very talented devs. Aside from the economics, it's also simple civility to not shout at people if (you believe) they're idiots.
    - the_af 12y ago
      I agree with you about treating newcomers nicely, but do note "having a new one teared" is an expression that doesn't refer to new people :)
      - toothbrush 12y ago
        Right, i totally didn't parse that sentence correctly on account of not being familiar with the (arguably distasteful) idiom. Thanks for the clarification, though.
- krylon 12y ago
  Let me first point out that pretty much every single programmer I have met in person has been pretty easy to get along with, and that I try myself to be as accomodating and friendly to other people as I can. (My day job as a sysadmin includes what is essentially helpdesk work, so this attitude comes in rather handy.) But it seems there is a kind of tradition among hackers of people that are exceedingly smart but also jerks. They get away with it if they are sufficiently smart, because many hackers tend to value a certain kind of cleverness above most other things. And honestly, I would rather deal with a smart jerk, as long as he/she was not trying to feed me bullshit than a friendly but ignorant buzzword-slinger. Having said that, let me repeat that I would prefer a friendly smart guy over both of these extremes, and so far, I have been lucky.
smikims 12y ago
More like the way they think Linus acts. Yes, sometimes Linus has outbursts, and I think it's fair to criticize him for that. But 99% of the time he's listening to ideas from all sides and deferring to other people on the things he doesn't know. I think a big reason for Linux's success is Linus' skill as a mediator, and that's something these imitators don't seem to grasp.
- bhrgunatha 12y ago
  Right - it's like all modern news reporting - it's incredibly distorted in favour of the dramatic and attention grabbing parts which are usually exaggerated beyond belief. The other 95-99% just doesn't get any attention because it's not news-worthy.
Fede_V 12y ago
Linus is a technical genius with a very abrasive personality. People tolerate the abrasive personality because he is an excellent programmer and steward for the kernel. What's intolerable is when untalented people cargo-cult Jobs or Linus and pretend that their personality is what caused them to succeed. There is nothing more scary than an untalented manager reading one of the many 'inspirational' leadership books about Steve Jobs - they are likely to pick up every single wrong lesson. Has anyone ever complained that Terence Tao is apparently a genuinely really nice person? People would still work with Tao if he was a misanthropic asshole because he is probably the smartest person in the world, but it's not like being a kind and generous human being detracts from his genius.
- bitwize 12y ago
  But Linus's personality is only abrasive if you screw up majorly when you should have known better. We haven't seen Carmack when someone tries to contribute naff code to one of his game engines. He doesn't develop in the open the way Linus does.
  - dalke 12y ago
    I've found that I inherently think that I've screwed up majorly in my code. Evidence shows though that's not the case, but that doesn't change how I feel. As my own strongest critic I write some pretty strong test cases, because I'm sure I did something wrong. Of course I can't test my own test plan, so I'm always worried that I missed something stupid where I should have known better. I also don't like strong emotional confrontation. Can you see why I wouldn't want to work with someone abrasive like Torvalds? Part of me will always be on edge expecting to be chastised, even if that were never directed to me. So it isn't only the targets of his abrasion which are affected, but also those who think they might be targets, even if that belief is wrongly held.
  - Fede_V 12y ago
    I genuinely have no special insight into what Linus is like as a human being. I just think that his abrasiveness (even if it only manifests itself in a few circumstances) is a negative that people tolerate because he is such an exceptional project manager and programmer. The keyword is 'tolerate'. Too often, people think that his success comes not from his technical mastery (which is very difficult to imitate) but from aggressive rants and call outs - and try to imitate those and justify it as 'well that's how Linus runs the kernel'. It's even more prevalent with people cargo culting Steve Jobs' personality flaws thinking it will make their company the next apple.

by nkozyra 12y ago

bsder 12y ago

> And I'm of the opinion that an attitude and approach like Linus' is fine - if you're Linus. I'm of the opinion that it's not. And, it provides a really poor example to the younger people in the field. I've known a lot of programmers. Many of them far smarter than Linus. Funnily enough, the better they were; the nicer they were.

EpicEng 12y ago
I don't think you know anything about Linus beyond his widely publicized outbursts (Which also means you have no idea how smart, or not, he is).
- moomin 12y ago
  OMG is he a 10x engineer? 11??? Seriously, there's no productivity benchmark beyond which you shouldn't treat people with respect. There are broken cultures where you can get away with it, but you'll still be an asshole. Linus is an asshole not because it's some deep essential part of his nature, he's an asshole because people give him a free pass.
  - pyre 12y ago
    Parent post was asking whether your knowledge of how much of an "asshole" Linus is comes from only reading the publicized outbursts, and not interacting on a day to day basis. While it's not preferable, I think that we can be understanding of the fact that people can sometimes have outbursts due to stressors in their life. That said, whenever I've seen people bashing a Linus outburst, I've gone and read said outburst. It's never as bad as the "tech press" make it out to be.
    - anon1385 12y ago
      >While it's not preferable, I think that we can be understanding of the fact that people can sometimes have outbursts due to stressors in their life. Sure. The question is, do the rest of us treat those incidents as mistakes where somebody went over the line and behaved poorly, or do we defend the behaviour and even try to argue that it's a sign of good project management that should be emulated because it 'tells it like it is' and keeps away the 'idiots'? Sadly the latter is a common attitude, as seen in other comments in this thread.
  - raverbashing 12y ago
    I'm not sure, but given his cultural background, I'd say he's less of an asshole than most people think he is. The level of rudeness in conversation is very dependent on cultural background and those ignoring it display cultural insensitiveness Europeans are more straightforward than Canadians and Indians where everything is said in a mild passive-aggressive tone that goes nowhere.
    - wutbrodo 12y ago
      I understand and have experienced what you're talking about, but I don't think it gets to the meat of what people dislike about the way Linus (occasionally) communicates with people. Being more straightforward as in "no that's a dumb idea because X" may put people off, but can be chalked up to "cultural differences in communication". This doesn't really apply to the kinda stuff Linus has said that people complain about: "Mauro SHUT THE FUCK UP" "I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. " "fix your approach to kernel programming." "There aren't enough swear-words in the English language, so now I'll have to call you perkeleen vittupää just to express my disgust and frustration with this crap." It's ridiculous to claim that that's just avoiding unnecessary civility. Those statements aren't "blunt", they're just him being a dick.
      - raverbashing 12y ago
        While they are blunt and I don't disagree about "him being a dick" written communication is very different from spoken ones, I can imagine someone using such words in a certain context and they sound less harsh. But in the written medium it really come across is the most harsh way. But while maintaining the kernel sometimes he needs to get the point across and saying "this is unacceptable, I am disappointed" will not work. For those examples, when reading the context I (usually) agree with Linus (and with his attitude), and this usually happens when the situation has been building up and people keep repeating those mistakes. Also, there are people much worse than Linus on the LKML (and subsystem lists), also some people are very polite and helpful.
      - icebraining 12y ago
  - ncza 12y ago
    I think you should treat Linus with more respect.
  - agumonkey 12y ago
    It's also a mass communication strategy. Concise and harsh. No time wasted.
  - wvh 12y ago
    Linus has a sense of humour that is often misunderstood, especially by the PC crowd. Abrasiveness is an innate Finnish quality. Just think you're in a Monty Python sketch.
  - topynate 12y ago
    What are you proposing? Because if it involves preventing him posting to mailing lists or restricting his contributions to kernel development I'm against, and on pretty fundamental ethical principles: you appear to think there's a deontological injunction against permitting someone to do harm by disrespecting others, whereas I think that harm should be weighed against the benefits that would be lost thereby. I also think that your opinion on why Linus behaves as he does is wishful thinking, sorry. There's a decent chance he'd take his ball and go home if the above were done. That would be bad.
venomsnake 12y ago
Linus is nice ... I have not seen him being jerk just for jerkness. But if you cannot take having a new one teared when you do something stupid - you are in the wrong field. Bullshit, stupidity and thin-skinniness should not be tolerated.
- toothbrush 12y ago
  Just my €0.02, but i think it's precisely the "new ones" that should be treated carefully. The kernel (or whatever other FOSS project) won't develop itself, so it's purely economically bad strategy to scare off newcomers who might well turn out to be very talented devs. Aside from the economics, it's also simple civility to not shout at people if (you believe) they're idiots.
  - the_af 12y ago
    I agree with you about treating newcomers nicely, but do note "having a new one teared" is an expression that doesn't refer to new people :)
    - toothbrush 12y ago
      Right, i totally didn't parse that sentence correctly on account of not being familiar with the (arguably distasteful) idiom. Thanks for the clarification, though.
krylon 12y ago
Let me first point out that pretty much every single programmer I have met in person has been pretty easy to get along with, and that I try myself to be as accomodating and friendly to other people as I can. (My day job as a sysadmin includes what is essentially helpdesk work, so this attitude comes in rather handy.) But it seems there is a kind of tradition among hackers of people that are exceedingly smart but also jerks. They get away with it if they are sufficiently smart, because many hackers tend to value a certain kind of cleverness above most other things. And honestly, I would rather deal with a smart jerk, as long as he/she was not trying to feed me bullshit than a friendly but ignorant buzzword-slinger. Having said that, let me repeat that I would prefer a friendly smart guy over both of these extremes, and so far, I have been lucky.

smikims 12y ago

More like the way they think Linus acts. Yes, sometimes Linus has outbursts, and I think it's fair to criticize him for that. But 99% of the time he's listening to ideas from all sides and deferring to other people on the things he doesn't know. I think a big reason for Linux's success is Linus' skill as a mediator, and that's something these imitators don't seem to grasp.

bhrgunatha 12y ago
Right - it's like all modern news reporting - it's incredibly distorted in favour of the dramatic and attention grabbing parts which are usually exaggerated beyond belief. The other 95-99% just doesn't get any attention because it's not news-worthy.

Fede_V 12y ago

Linus is a technical genius with a very abrasive personality. People tolerate the abrasive personality because he is an excellent programmer and steward for the kernel. What's intolerable is when untalented people cargo-cult Jobs or Linus and pretend that their personality is what caused them to succeed. There is nothing more scary than an untalented manager reading one of the many 'inspirational' leadership books about Steve Jobs - they are likely to pick up every single wrong lesson. Has anyone ever complained that Terence Tao is apparently a genuinely really nice person? People would still work with Tao if he was a misanthropic asshole because he is probably the smartest person in the world, but it's not like being a kind and generous human being detracts from his genius.

bitwize 12y ago
But Linus's personality is only abrasive if you screw up majorly when you should have known better. We haven't seen Carmack when someone tries to contribute naff code to one of his game engines. He doesn't develop in the open the way Linus does.
- dalke 12y ago
  I've found that I inherently think that I've screwed up majorly in my code. Evidence shows though that's not the case, but that doesn't change how I feel. As my own strongest critic I write some pretty strong test cases, because I'm sure I did something wrong. Of course I can't test my own test plan, so I'm always worried that I missed something stupid where I should have known better. I also don't like strong emotional confrontation. Can you see why I wouldn't want to work with someone abrasive like Torvalds? Part of me will always be on edge expecting to be chastised, even if that were never directed to me. So it isn't only the targets of his abrasion which are affected, but also those who think they might be targets, even if that belief is wrongly held.
- Fede_V 12y ago
  I genuinely have no special insight into what Linus is like as a human being. I just think that his abrasiveness (even if it only manifests itself in a few circumstances) is a negative that people tolerate because he is such an exceptional project manager and programmer. The keyword is 'tolerate'. Too often, people think that his success comes not from his technical mastery (which is very difficult to imitate) but from aggressive rants and call outs - and try to imitate those and justify it as 'well that's how Linus runs the kernel'. It's even more prevalent with people cargo culting Steve Jobs' personality flaws thinking it will make their company the next apple.