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.
I would tell you that you haven’t worked with enough people. I don’t disagree but occasionally you find people that need a really really good reminder that they not only suck but you’ve tried to be nice multiple times and it didn’t penetrate.
I agree that some people need harder tones, but I don’t think anyone needs the abusive language that Linus used. If that feels like the only option, I think it probably means the person has gaps in their social toolbox.
And also if you are a manager and one of the team members perform poorly and you cannot help the person improve, you should rather let that person go before you get to a state, in which you write such mails.
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.
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.
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?
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”.
If you can’t express yourself without expletives, it just means you have a small vocabulary or lack the maturity to express yourself without getting emotional, or both. It is a major sign of incompetence, unprofessionalism, and ignorance.
Direct != being an asshole. If you don’t understand that, you have a lot to learn.
Being directly a cunt actually causes sabotaging employees who work the minimum letter of the contract until they can quit via a text 5 minutes after start of day because they got another job lined up.
Dumb managers poison the well by acting like this.
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
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
What if I told you that you can have constructive discussions without being verbally abusive?
What if I told you to shut the fu… oh… Oh… okay…yeah, that wasn’t constructive…
Okay, I see your point.
I would verbally abuse you
I would tell you that you haven’t worked with enough people. I don’t disagree but occasionally you find people that need a really really good reminder that they not only suck but you’ve tried to be nice multiple times and it didn’t penetrate.
I agree that some people need harder tones, but I don’t think anyone needs the abusive language that Linus used. If that feels like the only option, I think it probably means the person has gaps in their social toolbox.
And also if you are a manager and one of the team members perform poorly and you cannot help the person improve, you should rather let that person go before you get to a state, in which you write such mails.
You can be angry without being rude. I’d much prefer passive aggressiveness than egregious blame-shifting and accusations.
You don’t need to be passive agressive either, you can just be polite and factual.
I don’t think anyone ever accused Linus of being “passive”
Well put. My boss had been polite and factual when she gets “angry”.
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.
Is she impolite when she is not angry?
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.
But don’t be too factual or you will be Linus
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?
Both are bad IMO. Sometimes when morale is low, you don’t need constant berating to break your spirit.
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”.
If you cant tell the difference between passive aggression and politeness, you gotta talk to someone about learning. Big big big difference there.
THIS SO MANY TIMES.
Hard disagree. Passive aggressive solves nothing. Being direct actually gets issues fixed.
If you can’t express yourself without expletives, it just means you have a small vocabulary or lack the maturity to express yourself without getting emotional, or both. It is a major sign of incompetence, unprofessionalism, and ignorance.
Direct != being an asshole. If you don’t understand that, you have a lot to learn.
Are there any other words you’ve arbitrarily decided are a sign of lacking vocabulary?
It’s pretty hilarious that you think limiting your vocabulary somehow expands it.
I think it’s hilarious that you don’t understand synonyms.
Edit: nor expletives
Being directly a cunt actually causes sabotaging employees who work the minimum letter of the contract until they can quit via a text 5 minutes after start of day because they got another job lined up.
Dumb managers poison the well by acting like this.
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
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.
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.
Linus says extra clear that the bug is not in user space, it’s in kernel.
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.
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.
Maybe you do if it’s a volunteer position that you want the other person to rage quit.
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
This screenshot is from 11 years ago.
Yeah I just noticed that after commenting this. Still halfway applicable, but who knows how Linus is these days - not me 🤷