

Linus: ...documentation should be laughed at, peed upon, put on fire... - eksith
https://lkml.org/lkml/2001/1/12/24

======
grannyg00se
His point was that documentation shouldn't be taken as the final word since it
is not always 100% accurate. Especially when writing kernel drivers.

So you do all the dramatic laughing and peeing and ... "THEN, and only then,
have you reached the level where you can safely read it and try to use it to
actually implement a driver."

So you're reading urine soaked documentation at this point. But I guess you're
now going to be reading it with the appropriate level of skepticism.

A little over the top perhaps, but kind of entertaining.

~~~
eksith
Linus' facility with language never ceases to amaze me. Even when he's over
the top, he makes sense.

------
hardwaresofton
Is operating systems development really such a horrific dystopic world full of
jagged-teeth hardened programmers?

~~~
ajross
It is when you're famous enough for people pull out 12 year old (!!) posts
without context just to flame about them. Sadly
[https://www.kernel.org/doc/](https://www.kernel.org/doc/) isn't ever going to
get the upvotes that junk like this does.

~~~
eksith
What makes you think it was pulled out just to flame? I thought it was a
colorful use of language.

------
6ren
well, documentation and reality easily get out of step - plus, documentation
is a form of advertising.

Unit-tests, that you can run yourself to verify, are better documentation.
Static typing is another form of reliable documentation.

