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Comment by ElBarto | Hacker News Reader

I've known outstanding guru-level engineers that were that blunt when I was a student.

You need to know the person. In my experience most of them are very nice guys. It's just that when they think something is not that great they will just say "it's shit".

I was told many times my code was shit by these guys at the time and I didn't take it as a personal insult but as constructive feedback. They liked that I took it that way and we ended up good friends.

People should see through the words before being offended.

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There's being blunt, and there's being a bastard (to borrow Linus' word).

True story:

I once worked in a place where a new trainee engineer was struggling with a piece of work. There were a few reasons for this that weren't their fault (not a lot of explanation of the requirements). Nonetheless, the work wasn't getting done as fast as the PM wanted.

Now, the PM in this case had moved across to software development from a post-graduate background in teaching, which I only point out to explain that this particular PM considered themselves something of a big deal.

(Having moved around as an independent contractor I'm fairly used to seeing small fish in smaller ponds that think they're the office genius, but this was next-level conceit.)

Anyway, they decide to let this engineer go one morning. Their prerogative I guess, but the PM shares with everyone later on that same day that they were able to steer this person in the right direction on the way out the door by kindly explaining to them that it hadn't worked out because "they didn't have the natural aptitude for engineering and would be better served pursuing a different career path".

Most of my gigs are in a fairly small city with a smaller community of engineers, so I'm used to encountering people a couple of years down the road. Sure enough, I never saw this person around again in any of the meetups or in any other gig, so I assume they left the industry based on this manager's feedback.

So yeah, bastards abound.

Maybe he was right?

and maybe he was wrong. whats your point?

I know this was referring to the parent, but just to add to this:

I wouldn't trust Linus Torvalds, Bill Gates, Dennis Ritchie (may he rest in peace), or whoever else to assess whether or not someone has a place in the software industry - so the idea of a mid-level manager in a nameless tech department doing so is utterly ridiculous to me.

I didn't say it was a he.

Nonetheless, that would require this person to be an arbiter of the software industry.

Given that you're on HN, and therefore very likely in the industry yourself, does the idea of someone you've never heard of deciding who does and doesn't belong doing this work sit well with you?

If so, yikes.

How is saying "it's shit" is "constructive feedback" ? What is the constructive part ?

I'm not offended when developers say that, I just observe that they are unable to build and express a reasoning, and that worries me about their abilities as developers.

Their abilities as developers are judged by what they deliver. Obviously they need to deliver before they can call someone else's code "shit", or at least before they can say that and be taken seriously...

> How is saying "it's shit" is "constructive feedback" ?

It means the contribution isn't up to the standards and therefore can't be integrated, and thus informing the contributor that he needs to improve his work in specific aspects in order to avoid similar problems.

> What is the constructive part ?

You're focusing too much on irrelevant aspects of the communication (i.e., which and how a word was used) and in the process ignoring (intentionally or not) what was actually said. Typically linus includes specific comments on the problems present or caused by a contribution, whether in code or the development process. In the very least it's very easy to understand that this sort of process works through negative feedback.

> when they think something is not that great they will just say "it's shit"

Linus doesn’t just say “it’s shit” though - he says “you’re shit”. That’s the problem.

Of course this is not something to do in general.

But let's face it, too many people in this industry think that they are geniuses and take it very badly when they are brought back down to Earth.

The guy has to sort so many contributions that at some point it's not crazy to shut some people out. The effect of Sturgeon's Law on someone a but rough like Linus...

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