Every time Linus Torvalds' rude behavior comes up on HN, people leap to his defense. Then, people leap on top of those people for leaping to his defense. Personally, I fall strongly in the "he's rude and annoying and should stop it" camp. For the sake of productive discussion, I'd like to list a few things that are not valid defenses to his dickishness:<p>1) "He's a visionary developer." Yes, but plenty of visionaries are also friendly and polite. You can have a strong opinion and argue it strongly without descending into namecalling.<p>2) "He's built something millions use." That we live a world where having success allows you to be a jerk is a bug, not a feature. Respect for the Linux kernel would be respecting the people who work on it, which Linus rarely does.<p>3) "Kernel developers are used to this kind of behavior and can take it." That doesn't meant they ought to have to. And plenty of kernel developers have left. It feels like there's a big to-do about somebody retiring from the kernel once every couple of years, at least.<p>4) "It's his project and he can do what he wants with it." Maybe. It's largely the world's project now. But even if it were totally his, having the right to do something doesn't mean one ought to do something.<p>5) "You couldn't do it, so shut up and let Linus do his job." It's not, and has never been, about me.<p>I hope that by listing these, I can short-circuit some of the repetitive arguments on this topic... or at least confine them to one comment chain.
As in other controversial Linus-rants, I feel that, sure, some of his phrasing is gratuitous, but I prefer his brutal and <i>thorough</i> critiques to the way that some maintainers shut down issues with a smug and glib one-line statement. I didn't read the entire thread, just the single message in question, so I don't know if there's been a buildup (I mean, besides the many years Linus has spent as a developer) to this blowup. And I don't follow the mailing list so I don't know if Linus is half-jokingly playing into his pigeonhole of a reputation.<p>But I do respect that a developer who has created incalculable good for the world and is established enough to quit and live happily on a tropical island still gives a shit enough about things like readability to be irate about it, and to take the time to type out a "sweary" essay of examples and elaboration. <i>Someone</i> has to care, and I'm glad it's someone of his stature. I know I'm making an appeal to authority, but I tolerate a sweary rant from someone like Linus differently than from a middle manager who wants to be cock of the walk in office politics.
I really don't think this is an important topic and the article is of little substance with a fairly clickbaity image to top it all off. However, I do agree that the comment styles mentioned in the article that Torvalds supposedly dislikes are ugly. Code should look appealing when possible for sure, no reason to use those unbalanced comment styles.
Here's a link to the full email:
<a href="https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/7/8/625" rel="nofollow">https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/7/8/625</a>
Ah yes, classic Torvalds. He's one of the old guard from back in the days of "if it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand", back when neckbeards took out their years of being tormented by the jocks in school on anyone new who dares to set foot in their digital playground.<p>I'd never work with Torvalds. I dislike bullies.