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> swipes at the author's competency or intent ("worthless", "complete nonsense", "totally illogical"),

These remarks are directed at specific problems wit the code. Linus did not call the author worthless, nonsensical or illogical. In engineering, conflating criticism of your work with personal criticism of yourself is a sin.

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It strikes me as a weird argument. This is your work. You presumably did your best. If another person calls that work "complete nonsense" or "totally illogical", they are implicitly saying that you failed at basic cognitive skills and produced complete garbage.

Which, you know, might be justified every now and then, but it's not justified in this case.

If an engineer can't receive criticism of their work without taking it personally then they're a liability to the project. Taking criticism of your work in stride is an essential part of the job.

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