Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Hear hear! Linus really is the patron saint of grumpy, cynical engineers. There's nothing more frustrating than listening to the bullshit artist spin castles made out of air, knowing that you're the poor son-of-a-gun that's going to have to do the hard work to make it actually happen, and get blamed when reality intrudes on the grand vision.

Also closes with a great quote. Code is easy, it's either right or it's wrong. People are the sticky wicket

> It's almost boring how well our process works," Torvalds said. "All the really stressful times for me have been about process. They haven't been about code. When code doesn't work, that can actually be exciting ... Process problems are a pain in the ass. You never, ever want to have process problems ... That's when people start getting really angry at each other.



"Also closes with a great quote. Code is easy, it's either right or it's wrong. People are the sticky wicket"

When I read that I got the feeling that people were thinking to themselves "it either executes or has an error," but that is certainly not the case when Linus deems code right or wrong. Obviously not executing is an automatic disqualification.

Two patches can correctly execute and achieve the same goal, and yet one will be deemed "brain dead" and "moronic" and the other be deemed "right," solely on the subjective whims of Linus. Totally his prerogative, and I have no issue with it.

But don't think for a minute that code is "black and white."




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: