While I think reading in data one byte at a time is a stupid, I wouldn’t quite say that what he said is what I was thinking.

No but you know what I mean. We’ve all been there, looking at some effedup code and cursing the goon who dared check it in. Usually just end up sighing and getting on with it.

I suppose Linuses appeal in this regard is similar to Simon Cowell or Anne Robinson off the weakest link. Sometimes you just like to see stupid called out.

I am also a stupid programmer. However, the difference is that I try not to submit pull requests if I have no idea what I am doing. However, from what I am reading, these are not naive programmers who don't know what they're doing. From what I understand, most of the people that Linus rants about are employees of corporate sponsors of the Linux Foundation.

This is entirely my conjecture and I have no way of proving it but I suspect Linus taking a break is Intel flexing its muscles on the Linux Foundation.

From what I’ve read about some of these rants corporate sponsorship != competence and there’s one or two things in my recollection that were astoundingly stupid. Schoolboy errors, in code that’s supposed to run in kernel space. I get that he kind of feels that he shouldn’t be in a position of having to spoonfeed people.

Not condoning his rants, like I say it’s ultimately upon himself these reflect badly, and they probably do little to stem the flow of incompetence ...

> We’ve all been there, looking at some effedup code and cursing the goon who dared check it in.

Until you realize it was you who checked it in. If you write enough code, you will eventually not write the best code for some situation. It could be because you were tired or you simply didn't understand that part of the code well enough. Instead of attacking someone with insults, it's better to understand why the code got written and work to not have similar mistakes made in the future. Remember, everyone here is on the same team trying to make the best piece of software possible. Berating teammates (which is really what is happening here) does not make them better teammates or make the team as a whole better.

I completely agree up to the point scour ”everybody on the same team”

The most egregious errors made in my experience and often Linuses, are by people who don’t see themselves, or have no interest in being “part of the team”. Who dont abide by the code quality guidelines, who have been told time and again, or who are trying to make weasel changes to subvert the organisation of the code to their own ends.

Linuses way, however isn’t really the most productive approach, Aine these kinds of individuals don’t care anyway. It sounds as though this new “code of conduct” might be an attempt to move things forward.

> Often he's saying what we're thinking

This line of thinking is a fantastic way to create a non-inclusive group.

So what? Isn’t that what kernel development is all about? The careful detailed stuff goes in kernel space so that if you want to make a mess of things in your application you can do so without bringing down the whole system. It’s not like that to hurt your feelings or make you feel “excluded”. It’s for the greater good.

> careful detailed stuff

> if you want to make a mess of things in your application you can do so without bringing down the whole system

You don't need an exclusive community to make that work. We as an industry have tools: fuzzers, testing frameworks, better programming languages and type systems, and proof assistants, all of which will do a better, more consistent job of ensuring quality than project leads being assholes.

None of the techniques you’ve described is either proven or applicable to this domain. Being an asshole while unpleasant is not incompatible with “getting things done” as has been shown again and again and again.