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Comment by epistasis | Hacker News Reader

There's opinionated, and there's toxic, and I would argue that this is far more of the latter. That said, people in powerful positions will often get away with this, without many larger negative consequences. With that much power and influence comes a lot more slack in the way one behaves.

I don't have much tolerance for Linus like behavior in places that I work day-to-day though, without a lot of protective social niceties.

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That seems like a very sheltered perspective. It is clear that Mr. Torvald used the language he did to express and support his thesis. This was not a personal attack, a lashing out, or any other sort of fit. There was a clear message: stop writing shit code. He began by explaining his definition of 'shit code' with an example. Then, he explained why we don't want it. Finally, he presented a solution. He did all of this while still conveying his conviction. Sure, we could sit around crying about the f word, or we could accept the fact that sometimes when we do shitty things to people it pisses them off. Mr. Torvald was clearly pissed off from people doing shitty things to him. In this case, trying to taint a project he's spent the last decade working on. Should he have hidden this frustration just to appeal to your PC upbringing? Absolutely not. It was refreshing to read something sincere. Toxic? That code was toxic. That code would have had real world consequences that affect millions of people. A few harsh words mean nothing in comparison.

Strong language and mean words aren't toxic. I'd rather know the boss is pissed off than have him smile to my face while slowly hating my guts more and more. If you don't let people blow off steam and express their honest opinions people bottle it up and you end up with a nasty passive aggressive, underhanded environment where everyone is lying and that's actually toxic.

Are the only possible options swearing at employees or tricking them into thinking you're happy while you secretly are upset with their code quality?

When communication is carried out over text it can be difficult to convey seriousness, intent,tone and emotion behind overly professionally sanitized HR speak. Linus' example here is marvelous in comparison and gets his point across quite well.

If Finns are anything like us Danes, they actually like to swear a lot. DHH has some of it as well, and it seems it isn't meant as bad or as rude as native english speakers understands it.

David wrote about it here, https://signalvnoise.com/posts/1214-profanity-works

Toxic?! He's just harsh and with a good reason. I find sugar coating way more toxic than what Linus did.

The places where you work day-to-day are of very little importance.

This is the Linux kernel, it runs the world.

I personally also do not like bullying and if something like this were to come from someone_I_did_not_respect , then I too would not have much tolerance for the behaviour. On the lkml however, people respect linus, and that's the reason why he gets away with it. Not because of some 'slack in the way one behaves' as you put it. Take a look at the response:

http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1510.3/02919.html

I would imagine that if you're is being flamed by linus on lkml, it is most likely because you messed up big-time. Don't expect to be reprimanded with sugar coating. More so if you are an adult/mature/experienced (in terms of contributions) person who should've known better.

Yeah, nothing at all personal about:

  ...anybody who thinks that the above is

  (a) legible
  (b) efficient (even with the magical compiler support)
  (c) particularly safe

  is just incompetent and out to lunch.

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