Link: This is Linus
Last week Zite suggested this article, I’ve known about Linus and his rude comments. But reading this article, I realised that being polite is not right solution for everything. Having the experience of working with the many developers over the years, I met only very few people who act on subtle comments I pass during discussion about code/best practices. The rest just ignore and do what they have always been doing.
The fact is, people need to know what my position on things are. And I can’t just say “please don’t do that”, because people won’t listen. I say “On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle,” and I mean it.
Because if you want me to “act professional,” I can tell you that I’m not interested. I’m sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I’m not going to start wearing ties, I’m *also* not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what “acting professionally” results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.
At times you need to be King Leonidas and kick them hard so they learn and do not repeat the mistake.
Link: Linus Torvalds defends his right to shame Linux kernel developers