
On Linus Torvalds, technical and corporate communications - ahubert
https://ds9a.nl/articles/posts/linus-communications/
======
djsumdog
This is actually a pretty good writeup. I think the best teams are more
aggressive than what the author suggests.

The only thing you don't need to do is swear and the only thing you need to
really add is a better solution:

"That's a terrible terrible idea! It's bad design because of x, y and z.
Instead, why don't we do a? We can write tests for it and we'll need to
refactor the module, but it's a clean solution. We could also do b as a quick
fix. I mean if we have to, we can do c, but I think we should try to do a."

You should not be afraid to say ideas are terrible. On a corporate team, just
don't swear (in slack, you can in person. It's about professionalism) but if
you say something is terrible, say why, defend your argument and be prepared
to offer a better solution.

~~~
ahubert
I think my main message is that by being so definitive in the rejection of
things, you close down the possibility there is something you don't know. For
example, the moveFile() thing, maybe this is some kind of fingerprinted DRM
library where "nothing can change". Just leaving open the possibility there
might be a reason removes a lot of friction. And btw, this moveFile example is
so horrible it probably does require some yelling :-)

