While I don't disagree with the conclusion, I really wish he would not fly off the handle like this all the time. I seem to recall that he promised to stop this sort of behavior.
His tone is perfectly OK, he isn't attacking anybody and simply expresses what he thinks is wrong with the patch.
In addition he also ends with:
I'm more than happy to be educated on why I'm wrong, but for now I'm unpulling it for lack of data.
I see nothing wrong with his reply, he's making his points without insulting anyone and is very composed compared to some reactions he had in the past.
He is nowhere near flying off the handle here. You should take a step back and reexamine how you view communication from others and where you set expectations of thought process and culture matching your own.
The main problem here is he jumps to a bunch of wrong conclusions and aggravates that with his tone.
And even after being shown an excessive amount of deference (even when he is wrong) he only tacitly admits his mistake and he's still grumbling about and focusing on the areas he still disagrees with.
If he admitted he was wrong with the same tone he concluded he was right, there wouldn't be an issue.
It's the one sided nature of his communication that's unhelpful.
"Oh, I'm _soo_ special and pretty and such a delicate flower, that I want to flush the L1D on every task switch"
Is completely inappropriate. If you feel like that is somehow appropriate in a review then it is you who need to "step back and reexamine how you view communication from others and where you set expectations of thought process and culture matching your own".
I'd rather work with someone who makes good (or even bad) jokes about my code in reviews than a humorless bore who spends all their time policing everyone's appropriateness according to his own stodgy cultural standards.
Why not neither? Why not a person within the normal range of emotional intelligence, rather than either a humorless policer or an antagonistic smart person? Why are you defending his tone with such hostility?
The belief that one can or should judge another person (ie, on the normalness of their emotional intelligence) is quite boring, and is particularly annoying in coworkers. It is by definition fun to work with people who joke around, if one starts with thick skin, an open mind, and the confidence to occasionally be the butt of the joke.
This article is not newsworthy because Linus commented on some submission but because of the way he commented.
Oh, I'm _soo_ special and pretty and such a delicate flower, that I want to flush the L1D on every task switch
I'll flush the L1 at context switch" is beyond stupid.
Those are not the words of a wisened leader attempting to explain why allowing user space cache eviction is probably not a great idea but some flippant jerk attempting bully his viewpoint by calling other ideas and by proxy submitters stupid.
Linus himself has recognized this behavior is inappropriate and pledged to "get help"
I certainly respect his accomplishments, but just as certainly I don't condone his behavior. Further I feel his rants tell other savants that acting like jerks is perfectly acceptable and just part of open source contributions.
I always find his defenders to be a puzzle. So many believe and champion the cause of open source yet also condone and champion behavior that drives contributors away. As a champion of open source you should want to cultivate more contributors but our community is filled with those that emulate his unacceptable behavior.
Your comment instructing me to toughen up perfectly illustrates why his behavior is contagiously inappropriate. Thanks
Luckily, Linus is independently wealthy and doesn't need to play the corporate politics. I personally think his response is perfectly fine and may seem "too much" only by the distorted corporate standards.
If I wrote this patch and worked at AWS, I probably wrote it because some manager asked me to. I probably have realized already that the idea is kind of shady, but my manager doesn't care, so I go forward towards the inevitable rejection by Linus.
Looks like a case of looking for things to be offended by to me. I also should remind you Linus is head of a opensource project not a corporate division so he has no need to act "professional" at all.
This is such an awful, hyperbolic reaction to the parent post, it's disheartening to see it on HN. Maybe the parent post is overstating - but "perhaps the internet is not the place for you"? "If you are so sensitive?" "Toughen up"? "push an agenda"?? Honestly: Holy shit.
