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Comment by speedplane | Hacker News Reader

> As long as Linus is blaming the work done and not the people behind it, that's fine.

Certainly, ad hominem attacks are worse than making substantive attacks, but is that really the standard we should judge it by? Instead of a sprawling thread of visceral, wouldn't it be better if he just explained the reasons why the approach is bad in a professional manner?

Writing like this just seems sloppy and non-professional. It's rambling and unclear. It could have been far more effective if written point-by-point with far less emotion.

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Calling out non-professionalism and bashing a stranger's communication style are, perhaps ironically, nice examples of non-professional behavior.

I would answer your rhetorical questions with an emphatic "no." People's emotions and mental state are important. It's also important that we communicate, understand, and think about people's interior worlds.

Question for you: What else is Linus communicating with his writing style? Does he show that he cares? About what? What can we tell about his values? Are these values we want in a leader?

Sometimes it's good to take off the prescriptivist hat and try on Honest Curiosity.

If what you're measuring are random delays due to default scheduling and flawed code implementation, calling it "garbage" should give the author and others pause to think. In some cases, one need to establish a boundary, so as to not waste time and efforts into an endless discussion on flawed premises.

Explaining why and educating about the concepts, is the better approach, and was there as well. Short and concise would be best, while limiting the negative to exactly what need be pointed out: A spade is a spade after all.

If it stops people from developing "their own userspace spinlocks", it may even be kind of necessary to be quite direct.

> Calling out non-professionalism and bashing a stranger's communication style are, perhaps ironically, nice examples of non-professional behavior.

I don't see how this is the case. One can critique a style of communication professionally just like any endeavor. I'm not "bashing" Linus, or even suggesting that he should be less honest. Just that there are far more effective ways to make the same point.

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