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>And sometimes being personally disrespectful yields better results. Which is, after all, what one wants out of a software project

This is just as absurd as saying "And sometimes torture yields good information. Which is, after all, what one wants out of interrogation."

Under no circumstances should we conflate being critical with being disrespectful or verbally abusive. Good criticism can always be given in a respectful manner.

I can't see a professional situation between reasonable, intelligent adults (which I assume the author is) where being disrespectful yields better results. Better results than what? Firmly but politely explaining the other person's mistakes?

You don't do well in an atmosphere of (let me paraphrase) intense personal disrespect and you consider that your personality flaw? It doesn't make sense. Having a thick skin is certainly an advantage, but being less than thrilled about having to work with disrespectful assholes is definitely not a character flaw.

> If this atmosphere of harsh personal criticism does yield better results, then it's necessary.

That's a pretty big "if."

And my personal experience is that, no, working in an "atmosphere of harsh personal criticism" does not yield better results. It makes good people go away. It causes people who don't want to be attacked to just keep their mouths shut and not say anything. It makes people wary of floating ideas that could be interesting but also risk being abusively mocked. It makes people not want to ask questions. It kills social cohesion. Etc.

The evidence in large open source projects seems to support that "if" - I mean, if an atmosphere of harsh personal criticism would significantly harm the end result, and a friendlier atmosphere would improve it without undue burden to all the participants (as in, people can leave/not join because of hostile environment but also because of being asked to change their ways), then for any competing or forked project we'd expect to see the friendliest community to win, and that's often not the case.

Since many (most?) large high-profile projects seem to have the problem of hostile atmosphere, then it suggests that when all things are taken into account, then policies that allow various contributors/maintainers to be as [un]hostile as they want have outperformed policies that would require them to be civil or leave the project.

I mean, we're seeing developers contribute to projects run by assholes instead of saying "well, I'm ready to maintain a fork and not be an asshole" and having everyone jump ship. So no matter what they're saying, in practice they're showing that yes, that they prefer that ugly "leadership" over the alternative - pushing away the person that doesn't want to change.

I think you're confusing "a demanding atmosphere" with "an atmosphere of harsh personal criticism."

But I'm happy to hear where you're getting this stat that most high-profile projects operate with "an atmosphere of harsh personal criticism." Maybe some high-profile projects are like that, but my experience is that they're the shitty exception, not the rule.

> If this atmosphere of harsh personal criticism does yield better results, then it's necessary. I'm reminded of the old adage, 'if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.' Heat is necessary to cook (a kitchen in summer is miserable, particularly without air conditioning); interpersonal heat may be necessary to produce better software.

Perhaps currently, the environment is toxic, but it also manages to produce excellent results. Wouldn't anyone agree that now, moving forward, excellent results plus a supportive environment would be a step forward? How can anyone find that a regression?

Because too many people misunderstand that change doesn't have to imply wrongness.

We are good. We can become better. Becoming better doesn't mean we're bad to begin with.

Too often, the suggestion or request to change is viewed as a personal attack, which in this context is highly amusing.

Wouldn't it be better if we didn't downvote people _only_ because their particular view doesn't click with ours?

It seems like otherwise we're just getting people to be defensive and more inclined to keep their views to themselves rather than sharing and discussing everything openly.

Yes, precisely. The voting system is supposed to suppress poor content, not poor opinions. I disagree with the parent's viewpoint, but it was articulated well and respectfully presented; no point in downvoting.

Actually, i do not understand why this comment was down voted. Does any downvoter care to explain?

Maybe it's just feedback telling you to "[post] well enough to justify my very existence".

The poster said he supports a culture of personal abuse to produce positive outcomes. Downvotes should be least he gets.

I won't go into details of how I never said I supported "a culture of personal abuse". If anything, I meant to say that I don't perceive harsh wording related to my work performance as "personal abuse".

I was actually referring to zeveb's comments, which in my view received unfair downvotes of immense volume, despite being very well-formed and constructive. My own comments didn't even get downvoted that badly, and as of right now I'm still in net positive.

I did not say that I support a culture of personal abuse; I wrote that given the right conditions then personal disrespect can be appropriate.

You agree! You wrote, after all, 'downvotes should be the least he gets,' which is to say that you disrespect what I wrote and feel I should be silenced.

There's a difference between disrespect and abuse, just as there's a difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion. Some people aren't worthy of respect, but no-one should be abused.

There's a big difference between calling someone out publicly and being a dick about it. That's what I think she's getting at here. There's always a multitude of respectful ways and disrespectful ways to go about confronting someone about something.

Do you seriously believe that being publicly disrespected should be part of the learning process?

> Do you seriously believe that being publicly disrespected should be part of the learning process?

Depends on the learner, the teacher and the lesson itself. If someone sweeps others at a firing range with his firearm, then getting knocked down and chewed out will probably instill a more lasting lesson that a quiet reprimand. If someone forgets to include a comment on a function, that's probably less important (although it could be, e.g. if that function were controlling a generator at a hydroelectric plant…).

I am pretty sure that sweeping others with my firearm would have earned me a beating in the army...

> Do you seriously believe that being publicly disrespected should be part of the learning process?

Full Metal Jacket opening monologue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71Lft6EQh-Y

That's not really being disrespected as much as it is being uniformly primed for the "club" you just joined. Since we're using this film as an example, though, how did that public-disrespect-as-a-teaching-tool work out for ol' Private Pyle? ;)

> And sometimes being personally disrespectful yields better results. Which is, after all, what one wants out of a software project: results, not happy feelings.

I think this kind of mentality is the problem this person is talking about. Great software and happy feelings are not mutually exclusive things.

> If this atmosphere of harsh personal criticism does yield better results, then it's necessary.

I disagree. From what I've seen and heard, criticizing someone personally has nothing to do with development or really with the workplace at all. You can criticize my work, you can show me where I went wrong, and you can tell me where I absolutely failed but criticism about any portion of my person or my identity is unwarranted. I'd be open to being shown a situation where this is not the case, but I'm highly skeptical.

Personally, I think that there _was_ one personality that thrived in core kernel/linux development and it's caustic and Linus-ian. If that group wants to see additional contributions and not alienate the people like post author then their attitude and culture need to change.

> Which is, after all, what one wants out of a software project: results, not happy feelings.

That's a pretty disgusting utilitarian way to look at thngs. I'm sure you would never work for an employer that sees you as a unit of production, and not as a human being that requires healthy, positive human interactions.

> If this atmosphere of harsh personal criticism does yield better results

but does it?

With me it does.

Just to make sure we're on the same page... Consider these two options:

1. "sssilver, you are a fucking moron. I'm amazed your ancestors managed to not only crawl out of the primordial soup, but to reproduce successfully enough times to bring you into existence. Christ, think about your code before submitting your pull request."

2. "This code has several memory leaks. Function bar_baz() returns a pointer to a stack-allocated data structure. On line 32, you've got a likely null-pointer dereference. There are several other problems as well. Go find some reference material or someone to help you improve."

You'd prefer to get #1 as feedback rather than #2? #2 is direct and blunt, but not full of personal insults.

#1 is far more likely to make an emotional impression than #2. That might be for good (one avoids making such bad mistakes again) or bad (one avoids making any contributions again). It's certainly more memorable.

I came up with it trying to think of something vicious that contained absolutely no insight about how to be better. It doesn't actually have any information about what the bad mistakes might be. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the whole idea that that'd work for some people.

Well, a real-life example would contain both disrespect and information about the mistakes, and how to do better. Something more like, 'How could you possibly be so stupid as to use the same memory location to store the car's current radio station and the desired fuel-injection rate, controlled only by a flag in another piece of memory? Didn't it occur to you that someone working on the entertainment system code might never even think of checking for a flag related to speed & safety? Dear God, Smith, do you realise how many people you could have killed? I can only hope that your other mistakes have prevented idiots like you from being born and placed into positions of trust, you sorry misbegotten excuse for an engineer!'

Harsh, but I bet Smith would remember that moment well, and be more careful in the future. Or he might quit, and never write automotive-safety-impacting code again.

Which is, I think, a mistake; by and large, the best of harsh feedback is more 'both' than 'either/or' - i.e. it might include a fair chunk of yelling but there's also actionable criticism therein. Certainly if you look at Linus' rants the ranting is to emphasise the criticism, not to act as a substitute for insight.

I would perform better with #1, because it'd motivate me a lot more.

With #2, the only thing that's at stake is the particular problematic code. With #1, my whole ancestry and evolution is being questioned, and I'm gonna make damn sure I perform well enough to justify my very existence. I know it sounds creepy, but that's how it works with me. Especially if the feedback is coming from someone I have immense respect for.

I hope you don't get downvoted. That is an exceptionally fascinating answer for me! I wouldn't call it creepy at all, just... unusual. It took a fair bit of effort for me to come up with at all, given that #2 is my typical feedback approach. I have a feeling that giving #1 as feedback on a student's assignment would result in a disciplinary hearing. :)

Very fascinating! Thanks for giving me something to chew on!

I also don't represent the western culture. That might be a culprit.

For me, there are different kinds of "works" at play here. If the question is what produces dramatic, short-term improvement, an abusive approach quite often works wonders. But over the long term, that's thoroughly corrosive. Fear isn't a sustainable motivation when people have other options. (Which is why serial abusers also end up being very controlling; they need to eliminate the options.)

sssilver, you are a fucking moron. I'm amazed your ancestors managed to not only crawl out of the primordial soup, but to reproduce successfully enough times to bring you into existence. Christ, take a moment to realize that just because you have a masochistic desire to be abused by your coworkers doesn't mean everybody else feels the same way. And your stupid desire to suffer assholes is just setting yourself up for a life of being shit upon.

(Is that more to your taste? ;-) )

No fair! You actually included information and facts!

The only thing #1 would motivate me to do is (a) complain to the boss (b) complain to hr (if it exists) (c) get my resume in order in preparation for peacing out.

I'd like both. #1 adds some levity and humour; #2 gives me the technical details.

Perhaps if it was personal, like pointing out that I consistently do terrible work and really am not cut out to be a dev, then yeah that might hurt. Though more because the intent is that I shouldn't contribute, full stop, not just improve my work.

Though I suppose it's because there aren't any impersonal insults that'd bother me. Whereas being a member of another group that gets sincere bigotry aimed at it - yeah that might be incredibly frustrating. No one believes Linus wants to actually travel through time and perform abortions, nor would it make anyone think to do such a thing. But a "this proves women should really avoid engineering and stick to cooking" is something that many people actually believe and reinforces that thinking.

Edit: Though it'd need to be clear that this is the environment, that such strong feedback is not personal. If this was just delivered to some new hire with no warning, then it might come off the wrong way.

> And sometimes being personally disrespectful yields better results. Which is, after all, what one wants out of a software project: results, not happy feelings.

This kind of belittlement is not doing her post justice at all, and is exactly the kind of disrespect she is criticizing. She does not talk much about her feelings at all, but about respect. It is completely possible to criticize the work of someone, also with harsh words if needed, but without being disrespectful towards the person.