
Why do we tolerate shitty, mean behavior like this in programming communities? - simonsarris
Exactly one month ago Linus sent an angry email over the gmane.linux.kernel group:<p>http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1414106<p>It also resulted in the site: http://shutupmauro.com/ (where you can see the response as well)<p>You can find many defenses of him when this was discussed 30 days ago on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4962912<p>If you want to be spared the reading it is Linus Torvalds berating someone, and every top level comment in the HN thread is a defense of Linus.<p>I think its salient to bring up in light of the #1 topic right now, "What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5106767<p>----------------------------------------------------------------------<p>Linus' mission and position do not excuse his language. In defending users, he's still attacking a person. In the topic 30 days ago and commentors in the #1 topic right now are defending the same.<p>I think rooting out this kind of shitty behavior is the most important thing we can do to advance programming communities and make others feel welcome. By miles. Especially gender and general newcomer disparities.<p>The fact that so many here and elsewhere seem to think think this language is OK or justified completely blows me away.<p>----------------------------------------------------------------------<p>&#62; Mauro, SHUT THE FUCK UP!<p>&#62; It's a bug alright - in the kernel. How long have you been a
maintainer? And you <i>still</i> haven't learnt the first rule of kernel
maintenance?<p>&#62; If a change results in user programs breaking, it's a bug in the
kernel. We never EVER blame the user programs. How hard can this be to
understand?<p>...<p>&#62; Shut up, Mauro. And I don't _ever_ want to hear that kind of obvious
garbage and idiocy from a kernel maintainer again. Seriously.<p>----------------------------------------------------------------------<p>If you talked to your spouse like that it would be called abuse.<p>Why do we tolerate shitty, mean behavior like this in programming communities?
======
bjourne
Here is a story that happened to me on a totally different part of the
internet:

Someone on a music-related board posts a song and a request for someone to
take out the chords. Nobody replies and the post lingers. A few weeks later I
come around and figure that even though I'm an amateur, maybe I can help this
guy. So I spend about two hours listening and relistening to the song and
writing down the chords I hear.

Then I reply with the chords and include a caveat that I'm not very good.

15-20 minutes later one of the veteran 1000+ posters come around and totally
chews me out for getting some of the chords wrong. Basically giving me a
lesson in how much I suck. Though he later that day posts a much better
version than mine with all the chords correct.

The moral of the story? Douchebags are verywhere. Anecdotal evidence yes, but
I'm sure the douchebag concentration is not higher among hackers than in any
other subculture. In fact, I believe hackers are much nicer than most folk.

------
unimpressive
Because theres a large difference between yelling at a kernel maintainer who
should know better and yelling at somebody for reimplementing sed in a high
level language and posting it to github.

The former could cause widespread losing on millions of machines. The latter
isn't even a drop in the ocean.

------
deluxaran
In the first example I think that being rude is the way Linus shows his love;
joking aside as a developer for kernel you should be aware of the implications
of an apparently small bug; and if you don't like Linus,ok, don't work with
him.

Regarding the second example... my personal opinion is that people
overreacted. I appreciate comments about my code, but when the person that
makes them explains what I've done wrong, or how it could be improved but if
they just say that my code sucks and no arguments... ignore them.

------
1123581321
A few evenings ago I was talking with a small group of local developers about
a situation at one developer's company. He was head of Team A and another
developer, head of Team B, was leaving the company. My friend is going to now
head A and B. Team B has suffered over the years because their manager was a
"nice guy," and so Team B does not criticize each other very much. In Team A,
on the other hand, my friend is critical in a diplomatic way, and members of
his team will say things like "that code is fucking horrible" to each other if
it's bad (followed by specific examples.) The result is that Team A, where
people insult each other, has much better code and it's now a challenge to get
B to accept even mild direct criticism of code without being offended and an
even greater challenge to improve their work without offending them.

I think that is a typical story. Good, tight teams are harsh with each other.
More skillfully spoken criticism sounds nicer, but the message that the code
or the program design is bad is still there just as clearly.

A lot is being made of this person's treatment on Twitter. I agree the when
presented with stranger's code in a situation where it doesn't matter, it's
best to say nothing. But I would expect that if the developer wrote a poor
program on the job, for the job, the code should be criticized and the
developer should know they did a bad job on that particular task, and they
should be shown how to do it better or how to figure out how to do it better.
It's only because the developer in the Twitter story had no relation to their
criticizers that the criticism can be considered inappropriate.

Regarding women in programming, my experience is that the serious ones, just
like the serious men, would rather give and get harshly and be counted among
the best than to be treated like a child and progress slowly for years. We
should really think about whether we are making things worse by refusing to
give anyone the benefits of a trial by (controlled) fire.

------
ScottWhigham
I don't understand your using the headline "Why do we tolerate...". This
particular discussion in no way, shape, or form involves me. Maybe it involves
you but it doesn't involve me. So why do you say this is about _we_?

In other words, I don't care what/how _they_ treat each other in their own
forum because it's not my business or care. If Mauro, Linus, or other members
of that forum don't like it, then they should do something about it. It's
elitist of you to try to make it any bigger than that. It's silly and asinine
of you to say that I "tolerate" such behavior when, in fact, I had nothing to
do with it (nor will I).

~~~
caw
Some people take the perspective that by not speaking out about something, you
by implicitly accept how it is, or even embrace it.

~~~
ScottWhigham
Yeah, I get that, but clearly OP has taken liberties here to correlate
"Everyone on HN" and "Everyone on the gmane.org site". It's just silly to
bring "us" into this argument. We have nothing to do with that site. If
he/you/they/anyone argues otherwise, then the logical counter argument is "So
I'm supposed to police every internet fight about everything I like or
identify with now?" It's just fallacy to think that this is anyone's fault
other than the people involved.

------
damm
We tolerate shitty behavior because we are not told otherwise.

Growing up you you could meet a new kid on the block and play with some random
game without much of a issue. We had bullying in High School and we tried to
learn to deal with it.

Personally I know where I went left, I expected the best out of people and I
treat people how I expect to be treated. Unfortunately it does not always work
out that way, even if you work for them.

I won't generalize if there are more takers or bullies then yesterday, or
tomorrow. I just know that people need to realize they give the bullies power
over them. Once they stop giving that power they can /start/ to recover.

------
chris_wot
Because Linus Torvalds is brilliant at what he does, but is a shitty, mean-
spirited human being? Or as I call him, an antagonistic rude sarcastic
egotist, commonly shortened to "ARSE".

------
dobbsbob
Big deal. If you can't handle it don't become a kernel maintainer. If you
think this is bad go try to submit garbage code to the openbsd devs and see
what they call you.

If you want to be coddled work for the government or a corporation. This is
the hacker way if your skin is so thin you cry to the bullying police you
aren't cut out for it. Turn off IRC, join the hand holding php cms dev groups
and resume your livejournal pity posts about how cruel the world is

~~~
indubitably
Oh this is so much macho posturing.

Have you ever worked for the government or a corporation?

------
trevorg75
It's responses like Linus' that has kept me out of open source development.
Seriously these guys aren't getting paid, they're contributing. Does that give
them license to write shitty code? No, but also doesn't give anyone license to
be a snotrod about it either. I've found it's much more constructive to help a
team recover from an individual's

------
damm
One last comment.

I always wondered, what gave some random asshat on the internet the right to
ridicule my code and beat me up.

They have no right, but until you know that...

------
austinhyde
I'm a few days late to the conversation, and this will probably fly under the
radar, but here's my two cents.

I'll start by saying that I believe Linus was justified in the _intention_ of
his response, but not the execution of it. Linus, like it or not, is one of
the lead maintainers (if not THE lead maintainer) of one of the most used
pieces of software in the world - the Linux kernel - and is responsible for
how well it works. If one of the other maintainers screws up, it's his job to
make sure that (a) it gets fixed and (b) it doesn't happen again. This is the
intention of his response - informing a maintainer that they screwed up, how
they screwed up, and not to let it happen again.

Now, I think the most important thing to take away from both Linus' response
and "What It's Like To Be Ridiculed For Open Sourcing A Project" is the
relationship of the abuser to the abusee.

First, in Linus' case, Mauro is a _volunteer_ and working under Linus, for all
intents and purposes. Do I think Linus is justified in his response? No - his
response is overwhelmingly immature for a professional. But I do believe that
his response is expected; Linus is not exactly known for his tact and
kindheartedness. I also believe that it is Linus' responsibility to keep those
working under him aligned to the goals and values of the project, especially a
project as far reaching as the Linux kernel. It's up to Mauro to learn from
his mistakes or pack up and go home. Sure, it's abusive, but Linus and Mauro
are not spouses.

In Heather Arthur's case however, the relationship is that of peers. The way
her and her project were treated are downright despicable, especially in a
community that is normally so constructive and welcoming. What happened here
is completely opposite of Linus' response; this is not a supervisor chastising
his underling for a poor job, these are fellow developers baselessly bullying
another for publishing code that was useful to her. Heather was not forcing
this project on anyone, nor did she claim it was better than anything else; it
was merely useful to her and wanted to share it.

Here's the thing though: we _don't_ tolerate "shitty, mean behavior" in
programming communities. In Linus' case, most of us have simply accepted him
for who he is: an immature, obscene, yet brilliant developer. We put up with
him only because of the impact he has had and is continuing to have on
computing as we know it. However, he is an outlier - any one else who acts as
mean-spirited and childish as he does is immediately called out. Look at the
outcry from Heather's blog post and the immediate apologies by the
perpetrators. As a community, we almost unanimously frown upon "shitty, mean
behavior".

Just because it happens, doesn't mean we tolerate it. The internet is full of
immature, self-righteous, sarcastic, arrogant, elitist, and/or antagonistic
assholes, and as we grow larger as a community we will see more of them. But
that doesn't mean we support it. I love the programming community because of
how open, constructive, sharing, supportive, and welcoming it is to newcomers
and existing members alike. The thing that stands out to me, though, isn't the
aforementioned assholes; it's how we respond to them that matters.

------
boboblong
No one's pointing a gun to this Mauro person's head and forcing him to
interact with Linus. I doubt Linus ever took a vow to love, honor, or respect
Mr. Mauro. If someone with whom I am only interacting by choice says something
mean to me, you know what I do? I take my ball and go home.

You are being an idiot and should get the fuck over this nonissue.

~~~
atomical
Well, someone isn't in touch with their emotions. You apparently run away from
conflict and try to bully others into doing the same.

~~~
shrughes
It's not bullying.

~~~
atomical
Yes it is. Refer to this:

"You are being an idiot and should get the fuck over this nonissue."

~~~
shrughes
The word "bullying" implies repetition. And that's not the only aspect missing
from its definition in his posting.

~~~
damm
Twisting the definition so it benefits one person is not helpful here.

~~~
shrughes
Huh? I'm not twisting the definition, and my comment isn't benefiting anybody.
You make no sense.

You're an idiot and should get the fuck o--KIDDING! I'm not sure why you
bothered replying to me other than to play the "I am more mature than you"
game, so I hope this reply entertained you.

~~~
damm
Are you trying to act like Linus?

I feel like this comment came straight out of Middle School..

