Potentially hot take: I wish that more free and open source project leaders had the same “no-bullshit” attitude as Torvalds. It’s a great way to cull out entitled people who put their own feelings over actual contribution, thus having negative impact over the project.
And every single other alternative to this behaviour would lead to worse outcomes, either to the project or the patch submitter.
I just wished he stopped making it personal. There’s a huge difference between calling a person stupid and shitty versus calling the implementation stupid and shitty.
He rants, points out the flaws, calls the contributor a moron, and you have to waits a few emails before Linus actually provides a teaching moment. That kinda sucks.
It really does drive people away. I’m not good enough for the kernel, but there’s a project I could contribute to as part of my job but I don’t because there are mean folks there. My first contribution there was met with cursing.
Second iteration of the same hot take: some people need to be driven away.
I’ll use myself as an example. If I were to “contribute” with the kernel, any patch that I’d submit would have more holes than a sieve, more bugs than a jungle, and cause so much regression that you’d need to reinvent fire. I’d have a negative impact there.
The same applies to most other people. And most other projects, regardless of scope (i.e. this is not exclusive to the kernel development, or even programming).
Except that some of us don’t quite get when we’re a burden. “No! I want to contribute, thus I’m contributing! Reality bends to my GOOD INTENSHUNS!!1one”. So they end wasting the time of people like Torvalds, who got better shit to do than telling them for the 500th time “your PR was not accepted because [reasons]”.
I honestly do not think that it smacks of insecurity. You can claim that it’s rude, socially insensitive, perhaps even that it smacks of basement dwellers. But insecure? That sounds like assumption for me.
On the other hand, what does stink insecurity for me is the “I need to carefully pick words to avoid breaking someone else’s feelings” attitude.
People the can’t get their point across/accepted without belittling other people always come across as pretty insecure to me. “Do as I say or I’ll shit all over you in front of everyone”. It’s like every bully trope ever.
On the other hand, what does stink insecurity for me is the “I need to carefully pick words to avoid breaking someone else’s feelings” attitude.
Yeah you sound like one of those “I just say it like it is” types that never quite grasp that “how they see it” isn’t the same as “how it is”
People the can’t get their point across/accepted without belittling other people always come across as pretty insecure to me. “Do as I say or I’ll shit all over you in front of everyone”. It’s like every bully trope ever.
We’re talking about real life, not fiction tropes.
Yeah you sound like one
Stick to the topic instead of assuming (making shit up) about whoever you’re disagreeing with. The topic is Torvalds, not some muppet with a chimp avatar.
Lol, yep, bully tropes are based on real life bullies lol. I’m not assuming anything, I’m telling you how you come across, why are you getting all butt hurt and trying to control what I say?
If you want to actually argue that what Torvalds is doing is bully behaviour, you got to do it another way, because what you’re doing now is as bloody stupid as confusing porn with real life sex.
I’m not assuming anything, I’m telling you how you come across
Yes, you are being an assumer. And now a liar, too. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I can easily see the implicature being conveyed by your “lol u sound liek”.
why are you getting all butt hurt
And now you’re being an assumer again. Worse: being an assumer towards things that you cannot reliably know, such as the emotional state of someone on the internet.
Stop wasting my time with off-topic shit that you make up. Unless you want both of us playing this game.
You copied that function without understanding why it does what it does, and as a result your code is flawed & inefficient. This poor practice is a pattern I’ve noticed.
Less likely to be effective. There’s a good chance that the submitter won’t get the message, and that they’ll submit another pull request, five minutes later, with the exact same issue that made the first PR to be rejected. And again. Again. Again.
More insulting. Now you aren’t just saying “your code is garbage”; you’re saying “your code is garbage and you’re a fragile little thing that will break apart if handled incorrectly”.
As likely to create drama as the original verbiage, given that the drama is originated in human nature - we humans want to believe (even if outright false) that we’re “contributing”, even when we are not.
Thanks for the detailed response. We’ll disagree on this.
Points 3 & 1 seem to contradict each other a little bit. The modified verbiage obfuscates the message in a way which only impedes understanding aiding growth but not understanding evoking drama?
RE: #2, your entire response was very polite. You could’ve got the same point across by calling the approach I demonstrated stupid. FWIW, I didn’t feel coddled by your lack of disrespect.
Any psychologists running studies and concluding the most abrasive critiques are most effective? Any schools teaching the Linus method?
I didn’t call your approach stupid because I don’t think that it’s stupid, even if I disagree with it.
The modified verbiage obfuscates the message in a way which only impedes understanding aiding growth but not understanding evoking drama?
If the message wasn’t delivered, there’s a high chance of further interactions that might create drama in the future. The quote in the OP is an example of that - in the original context there’s an “AGAIN” that shows that it was not the first time that Steven Rostedt submitted a patch with the exact same issue.
So I believe that, even if you might get less drama now because the message wasn’t understood, you’ll end getting it later anyway.
Also, Torvalds’ message does promote growth, if read fully. Even with the “your code is garbage”, he’s still explaining:
which function should be used there, atomic64_add_return()
the purpose of get_next_ino() and other VSF functions
that Rostedt is addressing what Torvalds believe to be a “made up problem”
that Rostedt should read further info on the core functions, before using them
it’s just that the quote picks the spicy bit and leaves the boring carb behind.
Heaven help the community if “flawed & inefficient”, “poor practice…pattern” aren’t direct enough feedback! Linus’s style being an outlier suggests polite criticism is enough to make the world turn.
I think you could even simply replace capslock GARBAGE with capslock [FUNDAMENTALLY] FLAWED, leave the “AGAIN”, and it’d be OK if harsh.
Glad he did some teaching after the flaming in any case.
Heaven help the community if “flawed & inefficient”, “poor practice…pattern” aren’t direct enough feedback!
This was not directed towards the Linux community. It was directed towards a Google engineer. The community is the ones that you’re indirectly proposing that deserve worse software for the sake of that part of Google’s corporation.
And “worse” is not just a matter of “oh, I got a kernel panic. Damn. Reboot.” It’s actually serious shit; that kernel code will end being used in things from medical applications to sending Ingenuity to Mars. Worse code might literally mean “we detected your cancer too late, last time you were here the MRI wasn’t working”.
He is not even getting personal in this case dammit. I concede that getting personal (he does it sometimes) would be over-the-topic, but in this case he’s insulting the code, not the person.
Linus’s style being an outlier suggests polite criticism is enough to make the world turn.
Torvalds’ style is an outlier but so is the kernel. And the kernel being an outlier suggests that harsh criticism actually works.
Most of our [we = human beings, including you and me] production is garbage, even if acknowledging this offends our sensibilities.
It’s almost like you guys [you + people across this thread] want to believe that only the carrot is effective. The stick is also effective, even if you don’t want to believe that it is.
I think you could even simply replace capslock GARBAGE with capslock [FUNDAMENTALLY] FLAWED, leave the “AGAIN”, and it’d be OK if harsh.
Dunno if you noticed, but this is actually ruder in hindsight.
Torvalds’ approach: “your code is garbage.”
Your approach: “your code is garbage but since you’re a fragile little piece of junk I can’t tell you that directly, I got to mince some words.”
And odds are that, if he did it the way that you’re proposing, people would complain again that he’s being rude, and expect him to mince words even further.
Glad he did some teaching after the flaming in any case.
He did it before, during, and after bashing Rostedt.
There’s many ways to point out the issues with the patch without being a jerk. The patch wouldn’t have made it in either way, and maybe there could’ve been more useful conversations about the concerns (re: tar) that were brought up in the previous message.
There’s many ways to point out the issues with the patch without being a jerk.
Yes, if you don’t mind pointing out again those exact same issues again, because the same person (or potentially someone else) did the same mistake again, as they failed to understand the gravity of the issue again. And again, again, again.
…or alternatively you give the person a good smacking. That’s what Torvalds did, while pointing out those issues again. Carrot and stick
maybe there could’ve been more useful conversations about the concerns (re: tar) that were brought up in the previous message.
Likely not - that tar example was brought to highlight that Torvalds’ suggestion would cause a regression; that’s it. The discussion itself reached a dead end, the solution wouldn’t be to keep the conversation about that, but someone submitting a patch that would neither cause said regression nor misuse the VSF functions.
I’ll reply to myself to avoid editing the above (for transparency).
Linux users in this post: think on all issues that you had with your system. Bugs, papercuts, devs assuming use case, regressions (shit stopping working), dependency hell, anything. How many of those issues apply to the kernel, in a way that you can say “the kernel devs fucked it up”? For me, never.
I have a hypothesis, that I do not know the truth value of, that the kernel not annoying the shit out of us users is directly related to Torvalds’ propensity to tell people “your code is GARBAGE”, instead of sugar-coating it. And that free + open source projects where project leaders don’t do this tend to be crappier. (Does anyone here know a good way to falsify this hypothesis?)
It’s half this, and half an explicit policy “we do not break user space”. Together it meant that if you did anything that screwed up the user space you got told about it at length.
Now Linux culture is established enough that it only really needs the policy, and not the cussing people out to enforce it.
I wasn’t aware of that email, only the quote itself.
…not gonna lie, I think that it was beautiful. I have my bones to pick with pulseaudio but come on, you don’t shift blame like this, the guy deserved some smacking.
On-topic: I have my doubts if policy is enough to enforce it, or at least to enforce it in an efficient way.
Well this is it. What really enforces the policy is rejecting commits that break user space.
Now if you’ve got a large enough group of devs, rejecting commits is fine, but if you’ve only got a small group you need everyone to be working productively, and you can see why Linus ended up giving angry feedback about commits that were wasting everyone’s time.
Potentially hot take: I wish that more free and open source project leaders had the same “no-bullshit” attitude as Torvalds. It’s a great way to cull out entitled people who put their own feelings over actual contribution, thus having negative impact over the project.
And every single other alternative to this behaviour would lead to worse outcomes, either to the project or the patch submitter.
I don’t disagree.
I just wished he stopped making it personal. There’s a huge difference between calling a person stupid and shitty versus calling the implementation stupid and shitty.
He rants, points out the flaws, calls the contributor a moron, and you have to waits a few emails before Linus actually provides a teaching moment. That kinda sucks.
It really does drive people away. I’m not good enough for the kernel, but there’s a project I could contribute to as part of my job but I don’t because there are mean folks there. My first contribution there was met with cursing.
Second iteration of the same hot take: some people need to be driven away.
I’ll use myself as an example. If I were to “contribute” with the kernel, any patch that I’d submit would have more holes than a sieve, more bugs than a jungle, and cause so much regression that you’d need to reinvent fire. I’d have a negative impact there.
The same applies to most other people. And most other projects, regardless of scope (i.e. this is not exclusive to the kernel development, or even programming).
Except that some of us don’t quite get when we’re a burden. “No! I want to contribute, thus I’m contributing! Reality bends to my GOOD INTENSHUNS!!1one”. So they end wasting the time of people like Torvalds, who got better shit to do than telling them for the 500th time “your PR was not accepted because [reasons]”.
Making it personal is usually a bit over the top, I agree. Still, the no-bullshit attitude itself is good.
Nah, smacks of insecurity IMO.
I honestly do not think that it smacks of insecurity. You can claim that it’s rude, socially insensitive, perhaps even that it smacks of basement dwellers. But insecure? That sounds like assumption for me.
On the other hand, what does stink insecurity for me is the “I need to carefully pick words to avoid breaking someone else’s feelings” attitude.
People the can’t get their point across/accepted without belittling other people always come across as pretty insecure to me. “Do as I say or I’ll shit all over you in front of everyone”. It’s like every bully trope ever.
Yeah you sound like one of those “I just say it like it is” types that never quite grasp that “how they see it” isn’t the same as “how it is”
We’re talking about real life, not fiction tropes.
Stick to the topic instead of assuming (making shit up) about whoever you’re disagreeing with. The topic is Torvalds, not some muppet with a chimp avatar.
Lol, yep, bully tropes are based on real life bullies lol. I’m not assuming anything, I’m telling you how you come across, why are you getting all butt hurt and trying to control what I say?
Fiction cannot be used to gauge reality because what matters in fiction is not truth value, it’s entertainment value.
That’s doubly true for villain tropes (bullies are typically villains), since villains are usually assigned a lot of “random” behaviour, for no reason but to make their defeat extra cathartic.
If you want to actually argue that what Torvalds is doing is bully behaviour, you got to do it another way, because what you’re doing now is as bloody stupid as confusing porn with real life sex.
Yes, you are being an assumer. And now a liar, too. I wasn’t born yesterday, and I can easily see the implicature being conveyed by your “lol u sound liek”.
And now you’re being an assumer again. Worse: being an assumer towards things that you cannot reliably know, such as the emotional state of someone on the internet.
Stop wasting my time with off-topic shit that you make up. Unless you want both of us playing this game.
Looks like you have not been a part of any Linux community before 🤔…
What’s your opinion on this alternative verbiage?
It will fall on deaf ears
It’s garbage.
My opinion is that it is:
Thanks for the detailed response. We’ll disagree on this.
Points 3 & 1 seem to contradict each other a little bit. The modified verbiage obfuscates the message in a way which only impedes understanding aiding growth but not understanding evoking drama?
RE: #2, your entire response was very polite. You could’ve got the same point across by calling the approach I demonstrated stupid. FWIW, I didn’t feel coddled by your lack of disrespect.
Any psychologists running studies and concluding the most abrasive critiques are most effective? Any schools teaching the Linus method?
I didn’t call your approach stupid because I don’t think that it’s stupid, even if I disagree with it.
If the message wasn’t delivered, there’s a high chance of further interactions that might create drama in the future. The quote in the OP is an example of that - in the original context there’s an “AGAIN” that shows that it was not the first time that Steven Rostedt submitted a patch with the exact same issue.
So I believe that, even if you might get less drama now because the message wasn’t understood, you’ll end getting it later anyway.
Also, Torvalds’ message does promote growth, if read fully. Even with the “your code is garbage”, he’s still explaining:
atomic64_add_return()get_next_ino()and other VSF functionsit’s just that the quote picks the spicy bit and leaves the boring carb behind.
Heaven help the community if “flawed & inefficient”, “poor practice…pattern” aren’t direct enough feedback! Linus’s style being an outlier suggests polite criticism is enough to make the world turn.
I think you could even simply replace capslock GARBAGE with capslock [FUNDAMENTALLY] FLAWED, leave the “AGAIN”, and it’d be OK if harsh.
Glad he did some teaching after the flaming in any case.
This was not directed towards the Linux community. It was directed towards a Google engineer. The community is the ones that you’re indirectly proposing that deserve worse software for the sake of that part of Google’s corporation.
And “worse” is not just a matter of “oh, I got a kernel panic. Damn. Reboot.” It’s actually serious shit; that kernel code will end being used in things from medical applications to sending Ingenuity to Mars. Worse code might literally mean “we detected your cancer too late, last time you were here the MRI wasn’t working”.
He is not even getting personal in this case dammit. I concede that getting personal (he does it sometimes) would be over-the-topic, but in this case he’s insulting the code, not the person.
Torvalds’ style is an outlier but so is the kernel. And the kernel being an outlier suggests that harsh criticism actually works.
Most of our [we = human beings, including you and me] production is garbage, even if acknowledging this offends our sensibilities.
It’s almost like you guys [you + people across this thread] want to believe that only the carrot is effective. The stick is also effective, even if you don’t want to believe that it is.
Dunno if you noticed, but this is actually ruder in hindsight.
And odds are that, if he did it the way that you’re proposing, people would complain again that he’s being rude, and expect him to mince words even further.
He did it before, during, and after bashing Rostedt.
There’s many ways to point out the issues with the patch without being a jerk. The patch wouldn’t have made it in either way, and maybe there could’ve been more useful conversations about the concerns (re: tar) that were brought up in the previous message.
Yes, if you don’t mind pointing out again those exact same issues again, because the same person (or potentially someone else) did the same mistake again, as they failed to understand the gravity of the issue again. And again, again, again.
…or alternatively you give the person a good smacking. That’s what Torvalds did, while pointing out those issues again. Carrot and stick
Likely not - that tar example was brought to highlight that Torvalds’ suggestion would cause a regression; that’s it. The discussion itself reached a dead end, the solution wouldn’t be to keep the conversation about that, but someone submitting a patch that would neither cause said regression nor misuse the VSF functions.
deleted by creator
I’ll reply to myself to avoid editing the above (for transparency).
Linux users in this post: think on all issues that you had with your system. Bugs, papercuts, devs assuming use case, regressions (shit stopping working), dependency hell, anything. How many of those issues apply to the kernel, in a way that you can say “the kernel devs fucked it up”? For me, never.
I have a hypothesis, that I do not know the truth value of, that the kernel not annoying the shit out of us users is directly related to Torvalds’ propensity to tell people “your code is GARBAGE”, instead of sugar-coating it. And that free + open source projects where project leaders don’t do this tend to be crappier. (Does anyone here know a good way to falsify this hypothesis?)
It’s half this, and half an explicit policy “we do not break user space”. Together it meant that if you did anything that screwed up the user space you got told about it at length.
Now Linux culture is established enough that it only really needs the policy, and not the cussing people out to enforce it.
Famous email about it here: https://linuxreviews.org/WE_DO_NOT_BREAK_USERSPACE
I wasn’t aware of that email, only the quote itself.
…not gonna lie, I think that it was beautiful. I have my bones to pick with pulseaudio but come on, you don’t shift blame like this, the guy deserved some smacking.
On-topic: I have my doubts if policy is enough to enforce it, or at least to enforce it in an efficient way.
Well this is it. What really enforces the policy is rejecting commits that break user space.
Now if you’ve got a large enough group of devs, rejecting commits is fine, but if you’ve only got a small group you need everyone to be working productively, and you can see why Linus ended up giving angry feedback about commits that were wasting everyone’s time.