Sharp: Closing a door [LWN.net]

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 16:36 UTC (Mon) by sorokin (guest, #88478)
Parent article: Sharp: Closing a door

I'm not related to kernel development in any way and I don't have an eye on lkml. Could someone post a link what post she finds personally disrespectful? The post in her blog is very vague and it doesn't have any examples.

to post comments

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 17:00 UTC (Mon) by hp (guest, #5220) [Link] (33 responses)

Everyone involved here agrees with Sarah that the environment includes personal attacks - including the attackers. They simply defend those attacks as somehow ok or desirable. Google should find you tons of examples but I'm too lazy to Google that for you. :-)

Reconsider this kind of "please prove it to me" reaction in the future though: http://simplikation.com/why-sealioning-is-bad/
The point of Sarah's post wasn't to prove something to bystanders.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 17:59 UTC (Mon) by scali23 (guest, #104768) [Link] (13 responses)

This is the request you are replying to:

> I'm not related to kernel development in any way and I don't have an eye on lkml. Could someone post a link what post she finds personally disrespectful? The post in her blog is very vague and it doesn't have any examples.

I would usually say "assume good faith", but even without good faith I feel really puzzled in how anyone could find it worthy of a stigmatization.

In any case OP: I recall this thread http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137390362508794&... but as you I don't have an eye on the LKML.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 18:52 UTC (Mon) by ThinkRob (guest, #64513) [Link] (12 responses)

I'm not a fan of advocating swearing at people (things, concepts, or in cases where it's appropriate humor, sure...) but that thread doesn't seem as bad as I was expecting.

I get Linus's reaction against the notion that everything should have the veneer of professionalism. Maybe not to the extreme that he rails against it, but I am at least somewhat sympathetic. I've worked in places where it's OK to say "<developer>: Dude this code is busted crap and we need to fix it before it fucks us over" and ones where we "may need to reevaluate and see if we can refactor this for our next sprint to address some issues with our latest deliverable". The ones with the bluntness and more casual standards for language built better stuff. The ones with the more professional language seemed nice and friendly to outside observers, but still had personnel issues... they just weren't as obvious at first glance because they were cloaked in a layer of buzzword bingo.

Language doesn't fix organizational issues. If you have a fucked up power dynamic and double standards, you'll still have a fucked up power dynamic and double standards even if you never say "fuck".

What trying to restrict everything to using professional language *does* do is make everything into a presentation. Every commit, every message, every IM becomes a little mini exercise in HR compliance. And as a developer, I can say that there are times when all that mental context-switching gets frustrating and draining.

If there are personnel issues -- and it seems like there are -- the Linux community needs to fix them. I agree with Sarah's point elsewhere in the thread that there's a big difference between swearing about a piece of code and dressing down the person that wrote it. Even in a casual environment like I alluded to, the latter is not acceptable.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 20:19 UTC (Mon) by jhardin (guest, #3297) [Link] (10 responses)

I've worked in places where it's OK to say "<developer>: Dude this code is busted crap and we need to fix it before it fucks us over"

But that is not a (discourteous, bigoted) personal attack against the developer.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 21:40 UTC (Mon) by ThinkRob (guest, #64513) [Link]

Agreed. That's why I think there are some deeper personnel issues at root here other than just the use of bad language or ripping apart someone's code (even to their face.)

It's not pleasant to have someone tear apart your code, publicly, in front of you. But there's value in that, even if it includes a lot of swearing and irritation. What's not useful is letting that segue into a personal attack on the developer in question.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 1:04 UTC (Tue) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link] (4 responses)

But it is pretty much useless. How about - this code triggers an oops, under commonly encountered condition X so we need to fix. Saying it's crap is just as useless as the management speak. I'm really tired of people defending lazy and annoying comments by saying they're marginally more useful than other lazy and annoying comments. I disagree that vague, hyperbolic and hostile comments improve things more than just plain vague comments.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 3:20 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link] (2 responses)

If only the real world were quite so simple. Some code is so sweeping and nebulous that you just can't reason logically about it, short of writing a book anyway. Email-sized arguments therefore get boiled down into emotionally-charged aesthetic observations. devfs, X, capabilities, Mir, HAL, systemd, etc etc etc.

Agreed, vitriol and hype are useless and should just embarrass the author. But sometimes lazy arguments are the best we can do with the time that we have.

This is not to excuse lazy arguments, of course. We can and should do better. I just wouldn't like to see anyone err too far on the other side and demand quantitative proof before removing a difficult subsystem.

(hm, speaking of nebulous arguments boiled down into unsubstantiated emotional response...)

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 3:58 UTC (Tue) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link] (1 responses)

Then you say this code is so large and difficult to follow, it's time to start over. Still a lot clearer than "crap". Crap code could mean anything.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 4:33 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

But lots of merged code is large and difficult to follow. Scheduler, I/O, VM, DRM, ...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 18:27 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

I agree with this. I quite often review code produced by developers who work for me and I have never and would never say "this code is crap." I'd say something like "this code can fail in situation XYZ" or "this code needs refactoring because there's cut-and-paste" or whatever... but never anything insulting.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 13:34 UTC (Tue) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link] (1 responses)

However, many people take bugreports on their code personally, so calling their code "busted crap" is taken as a personal insult. This is fault of the "coding superhero" cult, where the only reason of bugs is "incompetence". The superhero cult also one of the reasons we have so little diversity in OSS developers...

incompetence

Posted Oct 10, 2015 8:54 UTC (Sat) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> where the only reason of bugs is "incompetence".

Whereas we all here know well that bugs result only from the incompetence of... some managers breathing down your neck until you "ship it!" as soon as it vaguely compiles :-)

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 15, 2015 8:13 UTC (Thu) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link] (1 responses)

Blunt dismissals like that may work face-to-face when the person making such statements can directly monitor the reactions of his counterpart and when there is limited audience. However, here we are talking about a public thrashing without actually being able to see the reactions it causes and adapt to them.

Not being able to judge your counterpart's emotions and temper your own accordingly particularly in social interactions is a hallmark of several personality disorders like Asperger's syndrome. It tends to cause severe social frictions and makes life rather problematic for those who are afflicted.

In electronic media, everyone is handicapped like that, particularly when not even trying anticipatory empathy since the reactive empathy is far too late in order to keep the damage in check or at least to intended levels.

Smart people will try to lessen rather than increase the impact of being severely handicapped by the circumstances of communication.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 15, 2015 22:02 UTC (Thu) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link]

"Smart people will try to lessen rather than increase the impact of being severely handicapped by the circumstances of communication. "

Smart people 'temper' their reaction to incoming speech taking the same considerations into account..

It is bewildering how people, that claim to master 'empathy' so much, seem incapable of the most basic symmetry consideration of their arguments.

BTW, nice passive aggressive way to call people that disagree with you 'dumb'...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 9, 2015 18:11 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> I get Linus's reaction against the notion that everything should have the veneer of professionalism. Maybe not to the extreme that he rails against it, but I am at least somewhat sympathetic.

All too often the veneer of professionalism is used to hide the crap underneath. So yes, Linus is spot on the money with that.

But to then use that as an excuse for not being professional? That's just one almighty unprofessional cop-out!

As was said - "Caesar's wife must not only BE above suspicion, she must be SEEN to be above suspicion". The *veneer* of professionalism is worse than useless, you must *be* professional.

Cheers,
Wol

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 18:01 UTC (Mon) by sorokin (guest, #88478) [Link] (18 responses)

> Everyone involved here agrees with Sarah that the environment includes personal attacks - including the attackers. They simply defend those attacks as somehow ok or desirable. Google should find you tons of examples but I'm too lazy to Google that for you. :-)

Actually I remember only one case: https://lwn.net/Articles/559061/ and I assumed that probably similar discussion have repeated again. I have googled and I have found nothing. So I assume that it's a continuation of this old story.

> Reconsider this kind of "please prove it to me" reaction in the future though: http://simplikation.com/why-sealioning-is-bad/
> The point of Sarah's post wasn't to prove something to bystanders.

Proving a point is very important. Without appropriate links, for a reader it looks like she want to look like a victim (while she is not), getting some publicity and make kernel community look bad (1). (sorry if this phrase is rude in some way, I don't know English very well to use correct euphemisms). With appropriate links, a reader could see that she was indeed offended/abused (2).

I don't see enough evidence for (2), so I'm inclined to believe in (1). But as everyone else seems to believe in (2), I assume that I just don't have enough information. That is why I asked for more links.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 21:09 UTC (Mon) by fredrik (subscriber, #232) [Link] (14 responses)

Sorokin, you've googled? Really?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Linus+Torwalds+rant

Try a few variations on that last keyword, say "abusive", "flame", etc. It doesn't take much effort to find many quotes from Linus where he asks people to kill themselves, or calls them idiots and full of bullshit.

As a bystander who isn't the target of such language it is perhaps easy to paint it all merely as a poor attempt by Torvalds to make some of his messages a bit more memorable. But try for one moment to imagine that you're a developer who's code will be scrutinized by Torvalds, and I'm sure you'll understand how unpleasant it is to be exposed to public humiliation on one of the most watched mailing lists in the world.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 22:57 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Agreed, and I'll go a step further: I find it unpleasant to watch even as as an uninvolved bystander. It doesn't hurt my sensibilities or send me into social justice mode, but it does make me tune out. Distasteful and boring.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 5, 2015 23:24 UTC (Mon) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (11 responses)

So... I found some Linus Torvalds rants.

As the owner of a software development company, I would fire someone who behaved that way in public to other developers, no matter how good a developer he or she was.

It's completely unnecessary to behave that way to produce good code. Plenty of other projects have far more congenial development environments and have high quality code. Maybe in 1991 it was amusing, but I really think in 2015 it's time for Linus and others to grow up.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 9:44 UTC (Tue) by ortalo (guest, #4654) [Link]

As I said previously, maybe it's not only growing up now, but also sharing the benefits of their work. Whatever the merits of major maintainers and past contributors they do not have a right to take more of a *share* of the current benefits generated by the kernel than newer or minor developers. Unless Linux has turned into a company that is.
As much as I would appreciate one who only swears by the command line; there is no need for another american software magnate in this world. Is all this "toughness" just an attitude or a way of preventing sharing the pie with foreigners or newcomers?
Sorry for raising the question, but everyone is so much into protecting its own assets and investments in the beginning of this century... Remember Keynes: in the long term...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 12:25 UTC (Tue) by hitmark (guest, #34609) [Link] (5 responses)

That page seems to limit themselves to showcasing only the "naughty" lines, and fail to present the context etc that preceded the rants.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 14:30 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (4 responses)

Maybe, but I cannot think of any circumstance under which I would tolerate an employee going on such public rants. It's just childish and rude behavior.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 14:50 UTC (Tue) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (3 responses)

I'd not talk like that, and I'd have problems accepting some of those directed towards me (and obviously also others). But maintaining a one-sided character assassination page isn't exactly proper behaviour either.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 19:43 UTC (Tue) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link] (2 responses)

Yes, maintaining a page of rants is slightly unfair. But it's par for the course, especially if you're a celebrity (which Linus Torvalds is in our little world.) We're in the middle of an election campaign in Canada and several candidates have been brought down by people digging up embarrassing Twitter or Facebook posts from their past. That's just how it works.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 20:22 UTC (Tue) by andresfreund (subscriber, #69562) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't find the status quo, especially not politics, a good argument here. Otherwise there'd be no need to discuss the communication style in communities either.

Most of the examples where Linus lashes out I in a totally over the top manner, seem to be in cases where the code of conduct *he*sees as a given is violated. Asking for a merge of non compiling or completely broken code, arguing for breakaging userspace, sidestepping procedures and so on. It often seems line both sides of this discussion don't try to understand the other.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 2:47 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

That's fine, but if Linus wants to lash out in that way he should compose the email and then delete it. Or at most send it to the person he's mad at. Not publish it on a public mailing list.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 17:57 UTC (Tue) by shmget (guest, #58347) [Link] (1 responses)

"http://*.aspx"
enough said...

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:21 UTC (Wed) by jubal (subscriber, #67202) [Link]

How does the file extension invalidate the content?

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 15:39 UTC (Wed) by Kamilion (subscriber, #42576) [Link] (1 responses)

Part of the way I see it, there is nobody who has risen to the position to be able to take the position of chief maintainer from Linus. As far as I know, he's said he'd give it up if someone was worthy of carrying the torch. And, well, it *IS* his project, despite all the contributions from hundreds of thousands of people across the world. Putting him out doesn't seem quite right either.

One of the reasons I work for myself is because I'd probably get fired for how I talk about some of the opinions I hold. (Mostly against oracle.)

[07:14:55] <====> ----- there is corruption in the MySQL database, attempts to repair are ongoing. I'm waiting on an update from ++++++ as to how he's getting on with it.
[07:16:26] <Kamilion> too bad postgresql isn't supported more widely :<
[07:17:20] <Kamilion> ever since I converted years ago, I've either not noticed problems, or just had so few that they aren't flagged in memory...
[07:17:47] <Kamilion> versus having to remember far too many hairy days fighting with mysql
[07:18:05] <====> Kamilion: had we known of the w-p issue, steps would have been taken. It's the 1st time I've had a MySQL dbase go sick in over 5 years.
[07:18:09] <Kamilion> and two years of the pain of Oracle Enterprise Database
[07:18:24] <Kamilion> I still cringe when I remember most of that
[07:19:37] <Kamilion> a hundred thousand man-hours of pointless boilerplate because some chump thought that being super extra mega explicit was the better way to go. And then someone else decided later, oop, nope, not good enough, let's do the same thing with a 2 at the end.
[07:19:54] <Kamilion> and thus, was born, the bane of my existence... datetime2
[07:20:22] <Kamilion> a million years of pain, conflict, and torment on the mind who inflicted this upon other human beings
[07:21:33] <Kamilion> just knowing of it's dark power brings sorrow and regret to all who hear of it (because they have to listen to me whinge about it in long-form)

Frankly, I'd much rather remove the influence of commercial software's make-work attitude that has resulted in such overspecified solutions as CORBA, Java, and XML.

To illustrate my point:
Here is a new python script:
#!/usr/bin/env python
import antigravity

And here is a new java project:
https://github.com/making/spring-boot-blank

As a developer, I can demonstrate an opinion that I clearly prefer the former over the latter. There *WILL* be people out there that will demonstrate the opposing opinion.
Arguments will be held, drinks will be thrown, sharp words exchanged, and among men, fisticuffs to the floor or first blood.

I simply cannot imagine a female persona that would equate software development with a barfight. It would not even occur to them as a last thought, let alone a first. The mere association between the two would be a concept as foreign to them as the myriad of uses woolite has for hosiery cleaning to a male persona.

I fear the issue has a far deeper-seated cultural mismatch between participants than the surface appears. The log trapped under fifty feet of murky lake water, itching to catch your anchor. If it's not causing a tangle *right now* it's easily overlooked until it's got you, and just as easily ignored once again after you've gotten untangled.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 7, 2015 20:55 UTC (Wed) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]

> Part of the way I see it, there is nobody who has risen to the position to be able to take the position of chief maintainer from Linus.

"Risen"? That word could be exposing your prejudices.
Where I come from, the key role of a leader is to support the workers, enable them to get the work done, lift them up when they fall down, support them so they don't trip.
Seeing a leader at the "top" of a pyramid is such an unhelpful picture.

Leadership is certainly an important role, but not necessarily more important than any other.
Leadership is also a specialist role. It is harder to replace a leader than some other roles, but not all.

I suspect there are a number of people who could step into Linus' shoes if they were vacated. Each would bring a different set of strengths - certainly not the same strengths as Linus, but probably not the same weaknesses either.

But as Linus' shoes are not vacated, there are no candidates pressing for the job (and if there were, we probably would reject them for that reason).

> I simply cannot imagine a female persona that would equate software development with a barfight.

I've never had doubts about my gender before ... but maybe I'm a bit female.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 12, 2015 2:14 UTC (Mon) by ksandstr (guest, #60862) [Link]

I can't help but notice this rhetorical behaviour of the anti-Torvalds mob. Asked for evidence, a concrete reference to the public communication by which the condemners formed their opinion, what do they answer? "Go search for it yourself." "It's generally agreed." "The lurkers all support me in E-mail." Might as well ask us to go convince ourselves, or to keep lowering a threshold of complaint until the conclusion matches.

It's not as though a convincing answer were difficult to provide. It'll be at the minimum a hyperlink, for crying out loud; copy and paste from the browser's URL bar, basic post-1984 GUI skills required. Surely some activist or another will have written the argument out in full on some wiki or another, by now? It's been two years already.

This suggests that the evidence doesn't exist, and that the current re-heating of the "depose that awful fire-breathing Torvalds" campaign has an even greater portion of hot air to reason for complaint than the previous. If this is true, then it's sad that all they can muster are some bargain-basement distortions, in themselves debunkable with a brief trawl through the LKML archives.[0] However it's (slightly) disturbing to see various tech media swallow and regurgitate the provided narrative hook-line-and-sinker: these are questions which they could've asked as well (and it'd be nice to quote something properly cut-and-dried, right?), were it not for their fear of seeming heretic to the pitchforks-and-torches of Twitter.

I argue that the preceding is indeed the case. My evidence is that all was quiet on that front until this latest pair of ragequits; and that therefore all that's actually going on is the raging, and quitting, of a shrill but well-connected minority.

[0] like that "dicksucking contest" one where it's clearly seen advantageous[1] to point to "blue language"[2] over its justification, namely that the justification for merging was a variation of "security interest trumps all", and that the submitter had been previously accused of "doubling down on fear". But who's going to justify a good moral conclusion, these days?
[1] to an incredibly minute degree[2]
[2] what's this anyway, pre-school?

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 0:31 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link]

She isn't trying to prove anything to you or any other innocent bystander. Her post was directed at a very select group of people that know exactly what's going on and what she has a problem with and who opposed fixing it. LWN reported on it because a significant portion of LWN users are participants and directly involved.

You are an outsider looking in, it's a bit rude to demand backup from a discussion you aren't even a participant in. I'll never understand an attitude that just because you read something about it on the internet that you are somehow now part of the conversation with the need that the author now justify and backup their statements to you.

As others have said it's not hard to find bad stuff on LKML, just search google for linux kernel mailing list and flame or various bad words and variations of flame. There are literally hundreds of examples and some very choice ones from Linus himself. Linus has done it often enough that he's publicly known for it.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 6, 2015 12:30 UTC (Tue) by hitmark (guest, #34609) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't get why she raised a stink there. The initial quote include a winking smiley, indicating that the line was said in jest. As such, the responses seem, at least to me, to be some friends joking back and forth. At best her response can be akin to a comedy scene where someone walk in on something and get the wrong sense. But as the quotes provide context, that seems improbable. All in all the reaction seem way out of proportions to what was going on.

Sharp: Closing a door

Posted Oct 15, 2015 9:09 UTC (Thu) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link]

When you communicate in public, you communicate in public. If you want to use private code, communicate in private.

When our family meetings (4 siblings) started to include newly gained partners/inlaws, they tended to be very on edge since they thought we were going to crank out the knives any minute. We were habitually calling each other the sort of things we called each other when growing up.

It was a very stressful environment for the newcomers and "that's just the way we talk" did not really make it all that much more tolerable. So we had to adapt.

In the case of LKML we are talking about a globally published discussion group with people from a much more diverse background than our extended family. It seems sort of obvious that this kind of common sense for leading a public discussion would apply even more here.