The Gordon Ramsey of software
In a parallel universe, there’s a version of Linus who runs a restaurant that makes noma look like a taco bell.
It’s pretty funny that Gordon Ramsey is actually a sweet guy and plays up the angry cook guy on TV.
In the UK version of Hell’s Kitchen you can see this side of him. In one episode he just hung out at the beach with his whole team and it was so wholesome.
The US show is cut in a way that emphasizes his outbursts, it’s much worse.
Same with kitchen nightmares.
In the US version, we see rage Ramsay
In the UK version we see despair Ramsay
Maybe it’s just reflective of the mood of the country
Eh, this is somewhat true, and he’s dug into this a few times. Some is put up for TV, but he’s inclined to be annoyed at people that call themselves chefs, take people’s money, and serve them sub-par products. In a few shows, like the one with Angela Hartnett where she took over The Connaught, it showed that he’s still an angry dude, but that it was needed because he’s taking over the restaurant at one of London’s finest hotels. Michelin Star places seem to be the same boiling pot of bullying and anger to strive for the best possible quality.
Some chefs, like J Kenji Lopez Alt have called it and him out several times on it, because it’s a very damaging practice, and one that spreads throughout the industry from wannabe Ramsay’s that thinks intimidation is needed to make food.
I’m sure Ramsay is a lovely guy in person, but I would hate to work for him.
18 years in restaurants checking in: Gordon Ramsay is not very far from the mean at all. In fact, I’d say he’s a mean mean man of average rage, and it’s the nature of the industry that does this to us. It’s flat-out abusive even in its best implementation, and the far and away vast majority of restaurants are purposefully exploitative. This goes double for back of house. I was usually a server or bartender, though I did work every hourly position at some point in my career. Front of house at least gets compensated more the busier they are. Back of house gets what they get whether they sell two orders of fries in an evening or they spend all shift with ten tickets on the rail and 30 open menus. Back of house also doesn’t get paid all that well, outside of a few rockstars. It’s a super high stress position, and that stress level is completely unpredictable. Any random Tuesday afternoon you could find yourself behind the line all alone as the third bus pulls into the parking lot. The extremely variable nature of the stress means two things:
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You don’t cook as a career unless you love turning out great food. You might do a couple years just because you need a job but it’s so hard on your mind and body that after a while you literally either love it or leave it.
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Eventually everyone in the kitchen becomes what Robert Anton Wilson called “…the walking wounded…slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief.” There’s a lot of PTSD in kitchens and, because hurt people hurt people, it tends to spread to new people and reinforce itself in veterans. In the highest volume store I ever worked in we used to joke that sexual harassment and bullying were just how we said “Hello”. It’s not okay, but it’s the reality on the ground. It tends to develop spontaneously because of the way restaurants work and once it takes root it’s really hard to get rid of.
So the average restaurant worker is half Anthony Bourdain, here for the love of food and people, trying to experience new and great things and build new and great things for other people to experience just out of a general enthusiasm for humanity. He’s also half Gordon Ramsay, throwing an overcooked steak back at you because a cow had to die to make it and our guest had to sell a little bit of their life to afford it, so you will fucking respect both of their sacrifices and turn out some good fucking food. It’s love, and it’s pride, and it’s trauma, and it’s passion for what is essentially an unrecognized folk art. And if it paid the bills I’d go back in a heartbeat.
You absolutely nailed it.
It’s an incredibly intense environment with a culture of accepted abuse (hate that I’m saying that), as well as a lot of exploitation.
His anger in real life is like… Below average of the food industry. Where his TV persona is way up there for entertainment.
his “putting on a show of being angry for the cameras” is a bit below average tbh. people who’ve never been in a kitchen find it shocking, and the rest of us are like “well he didn’t actually break anything and the idiot sandwich thing was really funny”
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You mean when he’s not admitting to felony crimes to advance his career?
Oh no is this going to be one of those moments where a celebrity I think is neat, I suddenly get news about how they’re a PoS?
I just learned about Chuck Norris a few months ago and I’m not ready 😭😭😭
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Linus is also said to be a sweet guy IRL and only became the angry kernel guy on the mailing list.
The tone may be a bit harsh but it’s muuuuch better than how he used to be during his most toxic days. This is how he used to talk: https://www.networkworld.com/article/706908/security-torvalds-to-bad-security-devs-kill-yourself-now.html
Linus definitely got much better at handling his anger since his public apology in 2018.
[I]f you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace ‘my kids’ with ‘sales people on the road’ if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place,” he wrote.
Hah love it
I can’t believe linus did a “KILL YOURSELF, NOW” before it was cool
*someone uploads a shitty pull request*
Linus: kys
reads the article
considers the triggers prompting the outburst
He’s… not wrong.
Not right, but definitely not wrong. There is a big difference between effective security and total security. He was dumping on total security, which in many ways is worse than no security at all.
Indeed, I think he just wanted to get the point across that it is a dangerous approach.
It was never a question of being technically right or wrong. Linus’ realization was that his inflammatory language was viewed as permission by other people in the Linux community to be verbally abusive to their peers. People who had been valuable contributors to Linux projects explained to Linus how they had been berated by colleagues, and when challenged those colleagues cited Linus’ own language.
What Linus wants is working code, and you don’t get working code by giving tacit permission to your most aggressive & abrasive community members to attack others.
That’s why I was particularly clear about him being “not right”.
Because being abusive is definitely “not right”.
But sometimes you have to make a point and you just have no other way of doing so, because the deed is already done, and anything less shocking is just gonna get ignored wholesale. That foot-stomp has to be loud enough and clear enough to be heard even by the people in the back. And there are only so many (frequently limited!) ways of grabbing everyone’s attention by the nuts.
I don’t agree with how Linus handled it. But I can understand it.
sometimes you have to make a point and you just have no other way of doing so
Well, that’s just an excuse for bad leadership.
Well, that’s just an excuse for bad leadership.
You can’t be a leader to people who have no desire to follow you in the first place. And you can’t force anyone to accept you as a leader.
The world is not as black and white as you make it out to be. Sometimes you need to throw your weight around for the overall good of the community. It’s why law enforcement exists within every functional community - there will be people who intentionally ignore “leadership” and break rules for their own selfish purposes regardless of how good said leadership is, and the only thing that will make them behave is the threat of social censure or outright punishment.
And Linus has no ability to directly correct or punish, so social censure is the next best functional tool.
I could write another rant on the whole American ‘I take offense with that’ mentality. It’s political correctness of the worst kind, and as far as I’m concerned. Jokes are often offensive. If you get offended, the problem is solidly at your end. Think about it for a while,…
He has a point there though IMO, things are way out if control with political correctness.
Have you noticed how almost every meme here on Lemmy goes in shitposts? My guess is, it’s a safe bet, almost anything goes there, so I won’t be downvoted to oblivion just because I wrote female instead of woman. Hell, I know I do it for that very reason.
While I mostly agree with you, don’t discount the insane volume of genuine hate speech in the United States. A vast amount of it –if not the majority– is coded language so there is an actual need to be extra sensitive. If you aren’t a member of a targeted minority, you won’t get it because the nature of coded hate speech is that it’s only transparent to the perpetrators and the victims.
I don’t live in the US, but from what I’ve seen, instead of everyone just taking a step back and not getting offended over stupid things, people do the exact opposite. I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. Maybe I live in a place where people have thicker skin, IDK, but to get downvoted over semantics when the post is not even about that, I mean… really 🤨?
It doesn’t matter, I know, no one cares about up/down votes, but just the sheer ammount of it was “wow, really?”.
As I said, it’s different if you’re a member of a targeted minority.
I think the point is that to you, it’s just semantics. But, to use your example, given that some people have started intentionally using “female” in place of “woman” as an (arguably) subtle way to exclude trans women, it suddenly becomes more than semantics to both trans and anti-trans populations. That’s what Smotherlove is saying about “dog whistle” language only being transparent to the perpetrator and the victim.
So from your/my perspective (admittedly assuming you’re neither trans nor anti-trans), it’s largely a case of “a few rotten apples ruining it for the rest of the bunch.” What should just be a semantic difference has been coopted and intentionally weaponized by some, so all of us have to be conscious of whether or not we’re making that worse.
It’s also not a new phenomenon. Many epithets start as PC terms and then become offensive based on how a specific group starts to use them, notably, almost every one-time PC terms for Black Americans and people of color. Unfortunately, it’s basically the reason that, for at least 100 years, (responsible) individuals/media have had to change terms for many marginalized peoples every 10-20 years, with many other examples, like “Oriental” and the terms that predate it, and plenty of others.
Female is not just anti trans. It has also been used as a way of dehumanizing women for some time. It was in the 4chan playbook until they switched to femoid for extra dehumanizing.
Good to know, thank you! Yet more reasons to avoid it
I also referred to men as males in the post, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone.
Though I do admit female was a more used term. I was trying to explain some of the differences (to the best of my knowledge) of why males are more agressive and just generally not so in touch with their emotions, as opposed to females. I mean, come on, I wasn’t trying to offend anybody, but I do suppose that some people just saw “female, brain”, thought I was talking smack about women and just started downvoting me 🤷. I was trying to explain that that is not the context and that those 2 terms were just the first ones that popped up in my mind, but it was too late.
I get the likely reason why you don’t find it offensive, but I also get why plenty people do.
Note how the complains are usually towards the usage of “female” as a noun, not as an adjective. That’s because of a small quirk of English, that marks adjective nominalisation rather heavily. To show it with a non-offensive example:
- I got two cats. *The young is a tabby, and *the old is *a bicolour.
That likely sounds fine in the other language[s] that you speak (as it would do in my L1 and L2), but it sounds weird for English speakers - they’d expect “young”, “old” and “bicolour” to be followed by nouns, not to be treated as nouns.
As a result, when you “promote” an adjective to a noun, people usually take it as creating a category aside from whatever category the relevant entities were formerly assigned to. And if the former category was “human beings”, the nominalisation becomes dehumanising.
Another example [now offensive] to highlight this would be:
- “Alice is gay” - most people wouldn’t raise an eyebrow to that
- “Alice is a gay” - since the usage of article forces reading “gay” as a noun, it suddenly sounds dehumanising.
The same process actually does apply to “male”; the main difference is that men aren’t seen as a disfavoured group by society, and people often take that into account when judging the offensiveness of an utterance.
I also referred to men as males in the post, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone.
Because there’s no history of “males” being used in a derogatory way.
I mean, telling someone to kill themselves is something that I’ve heard a lot, it usually never means “go and literally do it”, it’s more of an expression… But the fact that it was used in that context is just disturbing.
Doesn’t mean it’s ever the right thing to say.
Especially among professionals
I remember telling someone to go kill themselves was a generic insult in school. Same as “fuck off”.
exactly. This was normal years ago, probably at the same time he used it. I’m not sure if kids are still saying these things in high school, but in the workplace this is 100% out of place.
That’s not even his worst stuff. That seems pretty tame imo.
Ah, this happened two days ago? Further reading:
Linus Torvalds flames Google kernel contributor over filesystem suggestion
Here’s the specific response and it’s even better than anticipated.
https://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/2401.3/04208.html
I love this part:
the next time I see you copying VFS functions (or any other core functions) without udnerstanding what the f*ck they do, and why they do it, I’m going to put you in my spam-filter for a week.
Like after all that he will just block him for a week 🤣 I would block them for a year minimum or forever…
I was just about to quote that same bit. We gotta report a murder.
His response to Linus was interesting to read.
Oh and especially this comment further down in the conversation…
As it is, I feel like I have to waste my time checking all your patches, and I’m saying “it’s not worth it”.
I’m basically done with this. I never said I was a VFS guy and I learned a lot doing this. I had really nobody to look at my code even though most of it went to the fsdevel list. Nobody said I was doing it wrong.
Sorry to have wasted your time
Sheesh. Seeing just how long he goes on tantruming is kinda surprising 😳 seems like the guy was just trying to contribute… ya don’t have you shit in mouth, right? Jesus
Thank you for validating my feelings here. I don’t know why we idolize this kind of behavior, but berating someone on a mailing list should not be acceptable, much less desirable.
For sure! Like I think criticism should be welcomed from a constructive standpoint, but there were some outright personal attacks in there! After reading the wiki page for Linus a coupla days ago my perspective is starting to shift a bit towards him 😅 woof
I live by the “there are no heroes” philosophy myself. You can like some of what a person does while admitting that they are still flawed like the rest of us.
Way too much of the tech industry culture is rooted in idol worship.
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Oh that’s fun.
flames
Now there’s a bit of internet slang I haven’t heard since vBulletin!
Linus needs to make no corrections to his behaviour. His apology was needless.
He only flames those who make dumb mistakes, should know better, keep doing it, and don’t respect the gravity of the situation. Linux is used on MARS. Pretend to care.
There is a pattern to the people who get upset when they’ve earned a rebuke from Linus. Those people could get over themselves.
Well, kind of.
Linus needs to call out bad code, it’s an important part of Linux’s quality control. He doesn’t need to tell people to kill themselves.
Also, humiliating someone in front of the whole LKML list by calling their code garbage isn’t constructive. It’s the reason why a lot of people take one look at that toxic cesspit and walk the other way.
Especially when people look at him talk like this and then emulate that. Thinking that it’s no big deal.
Yea anger issues is no joke
That happened in 2012 and a lot has changed with Linus since then.
This reply ^
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it stands for Mars (A Remote Satellite (of the sun))
MARS stands for WAR!
You should do one of these a day.
A whole calendar with classics such as:
Who the f*ck does idiotic things like that? How did they noty die as babies, considering that they were likely too stupid to find a tit to suck on?"
Damn, you know, that’s a pretty good idea, a callendar with Linus quotes 😂.
You could make the memes manually, or like a true programmer spend several hours if not days making a script that make them for you.
Yeah, I’ve seen the type… had a colleague in uni like that. And it’s not like he’s gonna need it for something else, but why spend an hour making them when he could spend 5 hours making the script to generate them in 1 second.
If this is how true programmers think, I’m sorry, I’m not a true programmer then 🤷.
I meant it as a joke, but the way I see it is as a “fast” and fun exercise where their’s no pressure and the only judge is yourself. It’s more about coding something for the fun of it.
I understand the logic, but this really seems like a complete waste of time. I’d rather spend that time coding something really useful than coding that.
It’s not a waste of time if you enjoyed making it. See it as like reading a book or watching a show.
When you have to do something once, do it manually, when you need to do it more often, script/code it.
Oh, and coding is much more fun then manual labour.
Depends for who… I also enjoy welding and woodworking. It’s not always about the end product, it’s about the journey.
And 12 times is not that much. I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna make another one next year.
That’s how engineers think in their free time.
When the specific goal is something I can do manually, and it’s not pressing, I would rather spend time learning how to make a tool to do it. I might not need the tool ever, I do use the knowledge picked up on those forays every day.
Aha… so that’s why my wife says “why you gotta always complicate things” 😂.
Not regarding coding in particular, I’m an electronics and telecommunications engineer, I do code a little though (here and there 😋), but regarding every day things, like maybe make something that will ease my life, yeah sure, I do that. But it has to be something I use frequently enough, otherwise, no I don’t see the point in spending the time and the energy to actually do it.
Different disciplines - different thresholds. But yeah, that’s exactly it.
With software engineering, the unknown space is vast, yet the tools are great. So it’s very easy to start tinkering and get lost in the process.
I’ve been guilty of this… I justify it in my head by saying:
it took me 5 hours to automate a 1-hr manual task, but hey, with this practice maybe next time I’ll get it done in 4 hours, then 3, and so on until I can do it in less time than the manual task would take.
That is true though, I agree. If I do see it as practice, then yes, I would do it regardless.
Honestly Id buy it
I’d pirate it and donate directly to the dev.
The Daily Torvalds
Not mine stole it.
I’ve made like… probably 50 or 60 memes, but they’re not that good.
Agreed
Also, someone should make a dedicated community to Linus Torvalds quotes.
The follow-up discussion was informative and the original commiter learned something. We all learned something when we read the discussion.
Like I really don’t know anything about kernel coding.
You know that you can make people very upset if you do it wrong. That’s something.
Yes, that much I know 😂.
And it’s completely fair to be honest, a lot of shit depend on that kernel and code. If nothing else, it’s not nice if you screw up.
Dude, the first aircraft to fly on a distant planet runs Linux.
You want to not crash, lest you … crash . And fixing it would be so hard, that it may as well be on Mars.
I’d be so happy if he was yelling at me directly
Notice me, senpai.
At least someone cares for me enough to yell at me, right… RIGHT!?
YOUR CODE IS SHIT AND YOU ARE SHIT
Omfg I love this guy
(laughs at that guy)
(Also secretly hoping I’m not next)
“we only criticize people we care about. If you’re messing up, and no one’s saying anything anymore, you’re in a bad spot”
– Randy Pausch, “Last Lecture”
I want this man along with Richard Stallman and the creator of Slackware to be immortal
Patrick Volkerding. It’s amazing he’s still managing his own Linux distro after all of these years. And I’m eternal grateful for him refusing to adopt systemd and pulseaudio when they were both not mature and stable enough and most other distros didn’t care.
Most users actually have enjoyed both systemd and pulseaudio for many years now. They are both some of the best technology we have in the Linux world.
Yes, they are mature and stable now. But they weren’t when they were first introduced into Ubuntu, for example.
pipewire is certainly much better than pulseaudio tho.
Yeah it’s even better, I agree. :)
[citation needed] on pulseaudio being among the best technology.
Always a pain, pulsesudio. Pipewire works better in my opinion
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I love everything about Slackware except for the occasional weirdness and the absolute lack of package management from the distro itself (discounting third-party tools)
Meeh… Stallman, no, but Linus, yes, most definitely. I love his sense of humor to be honest, watch his AMAs from time to time, they’re like standup to me 😂.
My favorite anecdote about Stallman is how some women at MIT kept massive amounts of plants in their office to ward him off.
Lol 🤣, he doesn’t like plants? Didn’t know that 😂.
Both. Period.
Stallman has done more than anyone for free software. Just because you don’t like how he talks doesn’t take away the talent and the sheer will of the man. Linux should have never entertained snowflakes
He has, no doubt there, but he’s completely unflexible. The FSF would be better off without him. Other than the GNU tools, there really isn’t much else that the FSF has done regarding free software. Like where are they now with the RH debacle. That thing is a dead on court case and they’re nowhere to be found.
I’d hate to think what other projects needed their legal help and they were hiding under or a rock or something.
Also, one of the main reasons why many projects nowadays are under MIT or BSD licenses is because of Stallman. The lingo he uses is sort of faschist. The only good license is the GPL license, nothing else. That’s no way to present something… anything really.
I’m more opposed to what he eats
Stop idolizing people and especially stop idolizing RMS
You try achieving what they have achieved then
It’s possible to recognize technical brilliance while understanding that someone is a deeply flawed human in their personal life. I am appreciative of his contributions to the open source ecosystem while also recognizing there is a cult of personality built around an abusive egomaniac here.
Separately from RMS, idolizing anyone insulates them from criticism. In my opinion it’s elitism and socially unhealthy
Linux “Based” Torvalds
“It is not what you say that matters but the manner in which you say it; there lies the secret of the ages.” - William Carlos Williams
To be honest, yes, this is very true. Politicans use this all the time… and I just hate it when they talk for like 30 minutes and basically say nothing.
Business people too. They have a way of speaking that kind of pacifies and exhausts you, so that by the time they’re finished speaking you’re confused and don’t really feel like arguing anymore
There is an ancient 1400 year-old Arabic saying that goes إن من البيان لسحرا “in eloquence there is magic” or “some eloquence is magical”. It is an ancient tactic.
Eloquence is such a good way to describe the magical nonsense words. Thanks for that cool tidbit of history
Simplicity and honesty are luxuries rarely possible nowadays
Mhm, would definitely agree. Things don’t have to be simple, I get that, but at least be honest about it, don’t beat around the bush.
Dang that’s so cool. I’m sure it’s a phenomenon we’ve all noticed, but this is the first time I’ve heard it named
“hurrr durrrr beaners!” – Carlos Mencia
That’s what I tell myself nearly every day.
I literally just wrapped a web app I’ve been working on for a few months. I’m so proud of myself. I take a deserved break and see this.
I hate everybody.
lol 🤣🤣🤣
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.
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?
Looks like you have not been a part of any Linux community before 🤔…
What’s your opinion on this alternative verbiage?
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.
My opinion is that it is:
- 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.
- which function should be used there,
It will fall on deaf ears
It’s garbage.
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
Famous email
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.
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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.
There is no problem with reusing code, as long as you take some time to understand it.
that is the i-didn’t-invent-linux way to put it
It’s disappointing to see this kind of stuff still happening. Adults do not act this way. Do better, Linus.
Yes, they do… I see it every day on the street while driving home.
I don’t think car commuters necessarily make for a good example of adult behavior - in fact, the opposite tends to be true.
No, I meant other drivers. I’m not a nervous (cussing) driver, but most I’ve seen are. You should hear the stuff that comes out of these people’s mouths, my god! I had no idea grown ups could act that way.
Once this guy bumped me from the back, I got out, no real damage, just a scratch, plus I don’t really care, a car is a means to an end for me, takes me from point A to point B. So, I didn’t even offer to exchange insurance info (it was his fault, so in the end, he doesn’t get compensated at all). But this guy… he started cursing at his luck, and then just raised his voice at me and asked “you couldn’t stop 20cm down, could you 😒”… and I just gave him a confused look and got in my car. I mean, really? Over a fender bender? It wasn’t even a real scratch, it was just paint transfer.
It seems that we are in agreement, no? That a lot of car commuters behave like children?
Oh, I missed the car part in car commuters 😁, sorry 👍.
You write “thanks for being so diligent, Linus, and forcefully correcting people when it’s required” oddly. Typo?
Did you know that you can be diligent without yelling at people?
Linus has full control over what code makes it into the kernel, yelling is not required to accomplish that.
Yes, adults act this way.
On the other hand, adults do not act as if the world revolved around their precious-oh-so-precious feelings, or as fragile little pieces of junk that break apart unless handled very, veeeery carefully.
If my boss ever spoke to me like that about a mistake, I would straight up quit. Either be respectful or get fucked, that goes doubly so for a non-profit relying on the good will of contributors.
Please leave and give me the job instead. It’s the fucking Linux kernel we’re talking about; mistakes can mean many, MANY bad things happening to production environments
I think Linux has grown beyond the good will from contributors. I got the sense most folks do this as part of their job.
So it’s not your boss. It’s someone who you have to make happy to do your job. And your boss can’t help. Quitting won’t help. Not if you want to work on the kernel.
In that case, the high stakes world of kernel management is probably not for you.
Your boss would probably do worse, and fire you instead. Now it isn’t just your fee fees being violated, it’s your living wage disappearing.
As such, this comparison isn’t really useful.
Only a shit boss would fire someone for making mistakes instead of correcting them.
Also drop the whole pretentious right whinger act, you’re not a tough guy online.
Only a shit boss would fire someone for making mistakes instead of correcting them.
Most bosses are shitty.
Also drop the whole pretentious right whinger act, you’re not a tough guy online.
I’m not a right winger, nor acting as one. Stop making shit up / assuming shit about other users as a diversion tactic, and stick to the discussion.
This comment is giving me a lot of ‘rightwinger calling others snowflakes’-vibes.
Did you know that yelling is not a particularly effective technique pedagogically?
This comment is giving me a lot of ‘rightwinger calling others snowflakes’-vibes.
I’ll copy and paste what I just told another poster, assuming the same shit: I’m not a right winger, nor acting as one. Stop making shit up / assuming shit about other users as a diversion tactic, and stick to the discussion.
Also, don’t be disingenuous. I’m not calling anyone a snowflake here; as I’ve already highlighted across this thread that this shit is rooted in human nature. You do this, I do this, everyone does this, it is not a “snowflake thing”, even if problematic. Is this clear???
Did you know that yelling is not a particularly effective technique pedagogically?
Emphasis mine. If you’re treating adults as if they were kids, as shown by the reference to pedagogy, then you’re being far more offensive than Torvalds.
Also, Torvalds is a kernel developer. He is not a teacher. It is not his job to stop kernel development to teach PR submitter #91294556 “oh my little poor thing! We seem to be really confused with this function, aren’t we? Yes, we are! Here, let Mr. Linus help us, clueless thing. Aren’t we happy today? If you understood it, then say «YAY! THANK YOU MR. LINUS!»”.
Side note: it just clicked me that you guys are being culturally insensitive and imperialistic, given that a lot of Torvalds’ no-bullshit behaviour is likely cultural in nature.
I’m not a right winger, nor acting as one.
I’ll concede that I don’t know what political affiliations you have, but you are definitely acting like many of them do.
If you’re treating adults as if they were kids
Pedagogy does not refer to teaching children, it refers to teaching in general. Teaching others when working with software is expected, and it is expected to do so in an effective manner.
Also, Torvalds is a kernel developer. He is not a teacher.
The fact that you think that developers are not expected to teach is telling that you either don’t work as one, or have only worked in ineffective organizations.
Side note: it just clicked me that you guys are being culturally insensitive and imperialistic, given that a lot of Torvalds’ no-bullshit behaviour is likely partially cultural in nature.
Now you’re just grasping at straws, and this continues the trend of acting like a right-winger which I mentioned before.
For what it’s worth, I’ve worked with plenty of Finnish developers - none of them consider yelling at their peers to be an important part of their culture.
I’ll concede that I don’t know what political affiliations you have, but you are definitely acting like many of them do.
If I tell you my political affiliation, will you stop with this bloody stupid attempt of argumentum ad hominem?
I’m mostly Trotskyist, but influenced by Bakunin style anarchism and a few things of the Fabian Society. I don’t usually discuss politics through this account but you can see signs that I’m Marxist here, and signs that I’m socially progressive here.
The issue being discussed is completely orthogonal to politics.
Pedagogy does not refer to teaching children, it refers to teaching in general.
Finally some actual argument. I hereby retract the point concerning infantilisation, then.
The point about screaming (“think on the feelings!”) still applies however. He’s dealing with adults, not children. You’re expected to
- Be responsible enough to not be a burden in any collective task that you might join.
- Correct your mistakes. (More later on this.)
- Not lose your marbles because someone highlighted that the output of your work is less than desirable.
(You’re also expected to not be assumptive as a brick, but… eh.)
Teaching others when working with software is expected, and it is expected to do so in an effective manner.
You know what’s expected when working with software? Working with software. Stopping the development to spoonfeed others is at most secondary.
And even then, Torvalds went out of his way to instruct the muppet in question on what he did wrong. (You probably didn’t bother checking the context of the utterance, right? Go figure.) And that “AGAIN” shows that he did it multiple times, and the other guy was not correcting his mistake.
Now you’re just grasping at straws,
“This is wrong cuz I said so, chrust me” is not an argument.
and this continues the trend of acting like a right-winger which I mentioned before.
Refer to what I said at the start.
For what it’s worth, I’ve worked with plenty of Finnish developers
Anecdotal evidence, “chrust me” style. Plus outright distorting what I said, thus straw man. *rolls eyes*
At this rate it’s somewhat clear that you are really eager to be at least disingenuous, if not worse (irrational). Since there’s another poster trying to back up similar reasoning as yours, minus the blatant idiocy, I’ll simply disregard your further “contributions”.
“Thank you for your contribution! Sadly, it was rejected. But don’t feel discouraged, try it again!”Your comment is garbage and you are not contributing jack shit with this discussion.
Mistakes in the Linux kernel can cause damages that are measured in millions and even get people killed.
If you can’t be bothered to focus on your work and get criticism when you fuck up, work on something else.
Linus’ message here isn’t personal, his criticism is limited to the product created by the person. Something that any mentally healthy adult should have no problem with.
There’s no need to yell at someone to convey what’s wrong with their code.
None whatsoever, in fact.
Sir, email is text based communication, no yelling was involved.
ARE YOU SURE YOUR DISPLAY AND THE VOICE IN YOUR HEAD IS NOT LOUDER WHEN READING THIS?
Shouting near someone may cause damage to the hears. Don’t do that. Capital letters let me understand you are emotional, but cause no earing loss.
Stop yellliiiinggguuuh!
Yeah it’s absolutely disgusting and disappointing that it’s 2024 and people still try to code into the kernel in such a sucky and absolutely moronic way that they have to get set straight by The Linus.
Did you know that it’s entirely possible to criticize someone else’s code without yelling at them?
Of course it’s possible. It’s also possible to not criticize people’s code at all and just accept whatever code that barges in.
It’s all situational. This is a “Linus retort” situation.
