There is a certain cost in time and energy required to separate yourself from harsh statements like that identify it as such. While it's pretty easy to say, yes he's not suggesting physical abuse, the statement implies this guy is not going to cut me any slack, I can expect to get verbally attacked for missing something in my code, etc.
Bad code has a cost associated with it as well, it takes time to reject it, explain why it's wrong, and deal with the frustration of someone less experienced. Unfortunately with some developers they want to push that off on the person writing the code and bear none of the burden.
I've seen the costs of the latter in open source projects I've worked on. People who feel encouraged stick around, support the community, and when given good feedback will often learn from it and submit better patches. Taking the time to communicate and make sure everyone feels included is part of the cost to get that.
> There is a certain cost in time and energy required to separate yourself from harsh statements like that identify it as such.
It's not a "harsh statement", it's a joke. If anything it's flattering of that person's stature.
> While it's pretty easy to say, yes he's not suggesting physical abuse, the statement implies this guy is not going to cut me any slack, I can expect to get verbally attacked for missing something in my code, etc.
I don't think it implies that, but that's besides my point. The remark was represented as "advocating physical intimidation and violence", which given the actual context is basically libel. You're free to interpret anything you want about the personality of Linus from him making such jokes, but misrepresenting it like that in public is dishonest and harmful to discourse itself.
Bad code has a cost associated with it as well, it takes time to reject it, explain why it's wrong, and deal with the frustration of someone less experienced. Unfortunately with some developers they want to push that off on the person writing the code and bear none of the burden.
I've seen the costs of the latter in open source projects I've worked on. People who feel encouraged stick around, support the community, and when given good feedback will often learn from it and submit better patches. Taking the time to communicate and make sure everyone feels included is part of the cost to get that.