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EDIT: Parent post was blaming Linus personally for sundry perceived issues with the greater Linux/Unix ecosystem. I've left my original reply below.

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Linus had no part in any of those. Most of them existed long before Linux was a twinkle in his eye.

Heck, some (two-letter commands) even existed before Linus was a twinkle in his parents' eyes [1] [2] [3].

(The exception being git, which is objectively one of the best DVCSes which exists. There is a reason it is so widely used.)

[1] http://swenson.org/multics_wiki/index.php?title=Linux-to-Mul...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics#Project_history

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds#Early_years




i didn’t say he did create any of those. i only said he created git, which is true. i also didn’t blame linus like you say. i removed my response because, well, it was negative. i would just appreciate linus taking a less combative approach because his world hasn’t endowed the world of computing with as much nicety as he seems to think it has.


Linus has endowed the world with what is possibly objectively one of the greatest, and most historically significant, pieces of software ever to exist. He's entitled to his opinion. To claim he isn't, because the greater open-source ecosystem is fragmented and not user-friendly, is kind of like saying John Lennon has no right to complain about disco, because hippies are smelly.


i never claimed he wasn't entitled. i have simply stated i am tired of his complaints and rants. and my point is that the world he has helped nurture is not without its travesties, so maybe he should concentrate on that rather than constantly bitching about what other people have built.

it would be nice if you stopped twisting my comments to say what you think they say. and i don’t even understand your retort anyway.


>... constantly bitching about what other people have built."

Exaggerating to the extreme implies you do not have a strong basis for your argument.

If you actually count the number of times he's bitched about something, it's probably like 20 or 30 (can anyone provide a real number?). And even then only 2 are debatable in their value. (also a made up number to demonstrate the lack of solid data on this matter.)

Therefore, I suspect you knew this, and just want to vent or make Linus look bad. I hope you have a better day tomorrow and make a decent follow up comment.


in my own personal experience, my primary source of linus news comes from articles being posted about him ranting or cursing about something. i didn’t post those. someone else did, and i read them. normally, i will follow these up with reading about various things about him and linux where he isn’t ranting, but those articles have been my portal to his world. why should i care to seek out more about one who i find is well known to throw e-mail tantrums, flip off cameras as a message to companies, etc.? please send your advice and condescending call for positivity to linus as well. :)


> my primary source of linus news comes from articles

It's easy to fall into survivorship bias[1] when "news" is your only exposure to a topic. You are only seeing the extreme events that were "newsworthy".

> why should i care to seek out more about one who i find is well known to throw e-mail tantrums

Do you want to have an accurate understanding of reality or the distorted view limited to whatever was sensational/scandalous enough to be "newsworthy"? When knowledge is derived only from the extreme cases that make headlines, people start to believe inaccurate generalization like "black people are criminals", "Muslims are terrorists", or "gamers are antisocial nerds that might shoot up a school" even though all of these examples refer only to the most extreme members of the group[2].

> but those articles have been my portal to his world

If you're going to make accusations about someone, you should probably check if those articles (aka indirect knowledge) are both accurate and representative.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Qd3erAPI9w


The written form of communication lacks nuance. I genuinely hope you have a better day tomorrow.


"i would just like to get error messages that actually said something more than something went wrong. yea, no shit something went wrong, i already know that, but what and why and how do i fix it are questions i want answered. i know the code knows what went wrong, so just tell me."

..and then a whole bunch of other comments with you bitching and being entitled about stuff.

Hi pot!


I'm sorry, but you won't get that. That isn't how computer's work.

There is no magical "understanding" available through a computer to tell you WHY an error occurred.

It is a computing device. It can tell you THAT a problem occurred, and WHAT it was doing at the time. With a debugger, you are free to ask the WHAT question at many points within the program to figure out WHERE the problem is coming from.

But the answer to WHY can only be divined by you. Mom had a saying she was fond of: "You must be at least 10% smarter than the piece of equipment."

Computers are not smart. They are dumb things that are exceedingly trainable at doing very dumb, repetitive things very quickly. Layer on a bunch of layers of dumb stuff and finding the spot where someone derped becomes very difdicult, very quickly.


wut?




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