Why Linus Torvalds Insults People | Prime Reacts

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[DIN_A]

My favorite Linus quote: „A computer is like air conditioning - it becomes useless when you open Windows“

[oranges]

When Linus says he was joking, he doesn't mean he didn't believe what he was saying. He absolutely did. He just means he tried to phrase his thoughts in the funniest way he could think of.

[jackwright]

Functional families are always preferred over families that treat people like objects.

[JonathanTheZombie]

Linus is a guy who expects a trade of insults.

[vicentefernandes]

does a functional family implies the existence of a oop familiy?

[roaringfork]

There are two respects here. Respect as a person, and respect as a software developer. You can absolutely tell someone their code sucks ass and needs to be fixed without saying you're surprised they made it to adulthood.

[Valerius]

being insulted by linus would be like being featured on south park. kind of an honor at this point lol. dude is hilariously savage

[monkeygame]

Lack of respect is different from disrespect. You don’t have to respect someone, but that doesn’t mean they deserve active disrespect.

[hoodie_cat]

I will say, when Linus said "he was being honest", he wasn't backpedaling, it's just how it is.
In Finland, unless you're in a formal setting, if you do a shit job, be prepared for your job to be cursed at.

[krakulandia]

What Linus is doing is how basically Finnish work culture dynamics work in general, but in somewhat exaggerated way. I've seen countless of times when people from USA were visiting Finland for work related things and were scared during meetings when Finnish people were so direct and "brutally honest" (as they said) when discussing topics with their superiors and peers. The USA people said that they would be fired on the spot if they interacted like that with their bosses or peers. It's normal in Finland to discuss the topic directly without sugarcoating it, so we get quickly to the real issues and get them fixed. And usually no-one gets offended in the process. It's just that people from other countries aren't used to such directness and not self censoring the discussions. In my experience that is exactly the reason why Finland is so good at cutting edge technology development.

[markrichardson]

I began communicating with Linus in the VAX groups and on the BBS's way back in the early 90's. He's always had no filters.

[IvanRandomDude]

We need to rewrite "sorry" in Rust

[davidtester]

You nailed it with approaching everyone with dignity but leaving respect to be earned.

[mattjohnstondev]

one time my english teacher was like "you aren't sorry! did it make you feel sorrow??" I think about it all the time

[MohamedRagabH]

In this context, credibility is earned

Be assertive and polite

As in the Ten Commandments of egoless programming: Critique code instead of people – be kind to the coder, not to the code.

[kp]

My default is that disrespect should be earned. By default, I treat everyone with respect and they have to do something to change that. I feel that the whole idea of "people need to earn my respect" is immature and a way to hide behind being a jerk.

[unpopulareconomics]

I think there is a cultural component missed here. It's about how humor is used in Scandinavia (and Finland), where you don't joke about real problems, but you joke about trends that might become a problem.

That is to say, if I think a friend is really fat, I will not comment on his weight, but if a normally sized friend is gaining weight, I'll tell him he's one sandwich away from his own event horizon. That way he gets a chuckle from the absurdity and a small nudge.

I think Linus is using humor in the same way. He expects the recipient to know that, of course, he does not wish him wiped from existence, but to still convey that a particular patch was a stupid idea.

And yes, this use of humor with hyperbole is far from universal.

[OBGynKenobi]

Not giving respect doesn't mean insults are in order.

[russellsanders]

8:26 in college a member of a semester project burst into lab and berated me about how he just spent the last 6 hours debugging my stupid code. It was a real eye opener that I still think about 4 years later. It was just enough public shame to make me realize I needed to be more thorough and be able to learn my tools so I would never be shamed like that again. He apologized later for the outburst and all was well, but it scared me to death in the moment.

[Stilghar]

8:46
There is a difference between "Your code sucks and you need to fix this" and "You should be retroactively aborted". A world of difference in fact.