this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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    An oldie, but a goodie

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    [–] [email protected] 122 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    Honestly, I maybe get why some people are too sensitive to work in such conditions, but from my professional experience, I’d much rather prefer getting angry mail explaining why my actions are stupid, than everyone being nice to one another but the codebase is utter garbage and everything falls apart, which happens a lot in private companies.

    [–] [email protected] 93 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    What if I told you that you can have constructive discussions without being verbally abusive?

    [–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

    I would verbally abuse you

    [–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago

    What if I told you to shut the fu... oh... Oh.. okay...yeah, that wasn't constructive...

    Okay, I see your point.

    [–] [email protected] 52 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

    You can be polite or just straightforward and still get your message across.

    "We don't blame bugs on user programs", "This is not an error code that should be used here", "Your coding standards may have relaxed over your tenure, be sure to maintain quality code.", etc. I get the annoyance, but you can be firm without yelling, especially in a professional environment.

    Edit: Seeing the full context of Mauro's message (posted below), I can see why Linus took this tone. Mauro was being pretty condescending to a dev.

    [–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    "We don't blame bugs on user programs"

    Linus says extra clear that the bug is not in user space, it's in kernel.

    [–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    You can be angry without being rude. I'd much prefer passive aggressiveness than egregious blame-shifting and accusations.

    [–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    You don't need to be passive agressive either, you can just be polite and factual.

    [–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Well put. My boss had been polite and factual when she gets "angry".

    [–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

    Exactly. I've worked under terrible managers and some great ones. Great ones get pissed off but they never, ever try and let emotions out. They were all to the point and knew what worked for every guy.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    Is she impolite when she is not angry?

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

    No, not at all. I appreciate that of her. She doesn't even look scary when I'm being told off. Which is why I put the word angry in quotation marks. She tries to sound angry and look scary but we kind of brush it off. Not that I didn't respect her authority.

    [–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

    But don't be too factual or you will be Linus

    [–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    I hate passive-aggressiveness, because I want to know what people really think of me. How can you feel secure if you know that somebody might secretly hate you and is just waiting for the right time to put a knife in your back?

    [–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

    Both are bad IMO. Sometimes when morale is low, you don't need constant berating to break your spirit.

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

    Being polite doesn't mean being passive-aggressive. I can tell you that I completely disagree with your opinion without calling you "a brainless ape that should've fucking stayed in school because your dumb ass cannot comprehend the simplest matters".

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

    THIS SO MANY TIMES.

    [–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

    If you cant tell the difference between passive aggression and politeness, you gotta talk to someone about learning. Big big big difference there.

    [–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    Yeah, that's a hard pass on passive aggressiveness, constructive criticism isn't either of those things nor rude and angry ranting. Love Linus, but he really did need to chill out a bit more with these things. He could have gotten the same point across without coming across as yelling at the guy, just firmly pointing out that it was caused by the patch, the patch did things it shouldn't ever do, and don't break userspace or blame userspace programs

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

    Yeah this kind of attitude is never a productive strategy unless you want to surround yourself only with assholes. It also demonstrates a complete lack of ability to manage humans and keep your values straight when you become upset and stressed out, which is a massive red flag to hold up as someone running a project.

    In general it seems like a lot of people get into computers because they think it is a magic fantasy land where you don't have to practice people skills and interact with other humans.... when like every other industry after a certain seniority in a project it always, always, always comes down to managing humans and human interaction skills. The idea of the tech wizard programmer who can be an asshole because they are a genius at coding is just so tired at this point.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    Yea, that Linux thing will never amount to much with this kind of strategy.

    But wait. ..

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

    Just because it worked doesn’t mean it wasn’t a bad strategy that hurt a lot of people and turned away a lot more…

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

    I won't down vote you for your opinion but I do disagree with you.

    [–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    you seem to have created a false dichotomy where it's impossible to fix bad code without being abusive. would you like me to call you "dumb motherfucker" or is this explanation enough?

    [–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    I think you've missed what the sin was, as well as the context of the players.

    The sin was not the bad code. Let me say it one more time for clarity: the issue was not the code

    The issue was that, when presented with the defect (inevitable outcome of any software project: not intrinsically sinful) Mauro started blaming other people on a public mailing list

    Mauro, being a maintainer, was in a position of authority. Like a police officer, their bad behaviour reflected poorly on the organization*as a whole.

    If a cop was abusing their power (publicly or not), I expect the chief of police to come down on that abuser; to make clear that this abuse is absolutely unacceptable, not only within the accute instance, but within the greater context of the expectation of the behaviour of the whole organization.

    Mauro chose the context of his abusive behaviour as the public mailing list.

    Him getting slapped down in that same forum is the direct result of his own choices.

    In the same way that I would be upset with the chief of police not publicly and harshy denouncing an abusive police officer, so would I be upset with the absence of such a response in this situation

    [–] [email protected] -4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

    I didn't miss the sin. The sin isn't relevant to me. You don't treat people like that. Whatever you hope to accomplish, you can accomplish without treating people like that. If someone else is being abusive, that's not license for you to be abusive in response. If a cop was abusing their power would you expect the chief of police to publicly berate and insult him, or would you expect the standards to be enforced without resorting to that?

    When you abuse someone for being abusive you don't make it clear that abuse is unacceptable. In fact, you do the opposite. You establish that abuse is a part of your culture. If I was considering contributing to the kernel and saw this exchange, I'd walk away. I don't need that shit, not from Mauro, not from Linus, not from the Lord hisownself. It damages the organization long-term.

    [–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

    This wasn't abuse, though.

    It was a hash admonishment for the specific choices and actions that the person did that were wrong , and that the person, based on their position of authority should absolutely know to be wrong.

    The confluence of factors here are what differentiates this from abuse. By calling this abuse, you're actually diminishing what actual abuse is.

    [–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    You don’t need to tell each other to shut the fuck up in all caps and call each other idiots to get the point across. It’s possible to instruct your peers in a much more professional manner.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

    I don’t know the full context, but that message doesn’t sound like it was his first reaction to a first patch he got from that guy. I’m not implying anything, but I’m also no stranger to people resilient to reasoning. I’m not a fan of this tone or language, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal either

    [–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago

    Maybe you do if it's a volunteer position that you want the other person to rage quit.

    [–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

    I'm betting this isn't the first time, or the second, and probably not third time this guy has fucked up.

    There's a time for the kid gloves to come off.

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    Programmers are sensitive enough. All you have to do is raise your voice slightly, and they'll think you're yelling. You could probably make one cry just by saying their patch isn't good, without having to resort to aggressive language.*

    I don't know the whole history, but this seems highly unnecessary, and typical Linus. Didn't he resolve to be better a few years ago?

    Ah found it.

    *Source: am programmur

    [–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

    This screenshot is from 11 years ago.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah I just noticed that after commenting this. Still halfway applicable, but who knows how Linus is these days - not me 🤷

    [–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

    It's all fun and games till the baby blows up when it really really shouldn't blow up. And I personally, would rather have people learn that pain an email than learn that a million people are in pain because of their ignorance/bad work.

    [–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

    Or nice in person, then all the toxic bakstabbing behind the scenes.
    This reads like the Sh*t My Dad says book. The author said it seemed harsh to some people, but the bonus was there was never any passive agressiveness, and you always knew exactly where you stood.