An oldie, but a goodie
this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
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I'll be that guy: I miss the old Linus. If I fucked up that badly I'd want to know I had fucked up that badly.
But you can be told you fucked up that badly without it being such a public spectacle and without trashing you as a person.
Very good point. Berating someone for making a mistake does not help either party. Even more so, when the one screaming doesn’t actually mention what went wrong, so you can correct it next time
E.g.
True.
Yeah, maybe left kernal development (like Linus indicated he may have done to various people), maybe that person was traumatized. But alas, there's no other way to let a human being know they made a mistake without making exaggerated personal attacks.
Nah my man. No excuse to act like an ass like that; life's work or not. That's simply a sign of poor emotional maturity, and is (plain and simple) abusive behavior. People make mistakes, regardless of the severity of the mistake. Let's put it another way: would you be okay with someone talking to a child that way? If not, why is it okay to do so to an adult? Just because we're older, doesn't mean we deserve it.
Yeah, it's kind of invigorating to see somebody speak so plainly. No "There's a couple issues we should maybe discuss", no "Let's loop back on that sometime", no "Hmm, is that really the best approach? Do you have any documentation?" Just a straightforward "Dude, this is shit! Here's some reasons why!""
Having worked for a decade in tech, I would love it of people were this direct.
Having worked in tech for two and a half decades, and in places that were this direct - no thanks. There's a fine line between being clear and direct, and being toxic - what Torvalds did here was toxic, and in many workplaces of today would be classed as bullying. Being subjected to this 'directness' for any given amount of time will do a number on most people's personality and self-esteem. People don't improve themselves if all you do is shit on them.
Agreed. I think it's amusing to observe. Being around it yourself is quite difficult. Being the target of it sucks and having your peer go off the deep end and finding a way to reel them in sucks too.
Fair. I've worked in tech for just over a decade now, and I've only been in the polar opposite environment, and found it sorta suffocating. Everybody knows this guy is pumping out crap, and every bug in the system comes from his part of the code, but well...if anybody says it, or even hints it, they're being unnecessarily confrontational, and nobody ever gives anything but positive feedback in peer reviews.
I feel, from my limited experience, like the 90s might have been peak machismo rock star hacker work culture, and the pendulum has now swung to the very far side.
It's perfectly possible to say "this is unacceptable, we never break userspace. Mauro, your change is obviously what is breaking userspace because ..." without adding "SHUT THE FUCK UP" or "[all of this is] TOTAL CRAP", i.e. being direct without being derogatory.
I mean, that's fair, and as was pointed out elsewhere Linus has sought help for his temper.
On the other hand, for all the talk of how "unprofessional" it was for him to behave this way, he did shepherd an OS kernel from a hobby project to the most popular OS on the planet (with the possible exception of Minix, apparently...)
I agree that polite directness might be better, bu IMHO the more common polite indirectness and avoidance of any hint of conflict is clearly worse.
I read a lot of frustration in that post. I don't know if that frustration was warranted, but I've been in (non-tech) leadership where you almost just have to scream like this to get the point across.
"This is incorrect. Here's why. 1. 2. 3." no need to be disrespectful, no need to make it even call it a fuck up. either the individual has the maturity to grow or ...not. but then... I certainly understand the frustration. There's just some people... that definitely struck a nerve of the 'you don't get it, do you?' variety. like the guy who told me (working contract security), that it was illegal for us to make them go outside in winter, because below-freezing is too dangerous. (yeah. We, uh, provided them with some fairly good parkas, and had hats and gloves available. with 'if you need more' accommodation already mentioned.)(Oh, and he was only needing to be outside for about ten, or so minutes.)
It's a commit that can be rolled back. Not even the worst commit to a development branch can ever be that bad of a fuck up.
One can sternly address serious mistakes by a subordinate without being outright mean about it. Doing so calmly and seriously is usually more effective anyway.