> Are the geeks on HN that were yelled at senseless during PE better at basket-ball or sports ? I Thought so.
No, in fact I hated P.E. and sports, and you know what happened? I chose not to participate. I had no interest in sports, and I was not cut out for sports, and so I did not participate.
> Oh I don't say that encouraging someone with swearing or cursing to rise the adrenaline is bad. Cursing someone or yelling at him to get information conveyed ? Ridiculous.
Linus is not a professor, he's not here to teach. When people go to work on the Linux kernel they have huge amounts of experience and it is expected that they already know what they are doing. That expectation is critical, and they are held to the highest standards.
> When do we really man up and just punch the other guy in the face ? That should make sure he doesn't make the same mistake again since we just associate something physically to make things connect.
That's an entirely facetious statement and not remotely related to what Linus is doing when he calls people out on their mistakes. But sure, what the hell, I'd say we can draw that line right about at the point where someone's "contributions" start to have a net negative affect on the development of the kernel. I'd say that's just about punch-worthy.
> Right. Because on the farms, they are dumb enough to let newbies who saw a cow for the first time in their life on the tractor when real dangerous work is needed. I have worked on a farm for some days and my SO's cousins are all farmers. They ain't that dumb.
I recommend going back to the farm for more than a few days.
> Yes, it does. We don't need cursing words as big punctuation sign to get our attention focused on the task at hand. We need words like "now, listen boy, this is dangerous and this is how you do it safely". It works as well and you don't perpetuate violence and intimidation disguised as manhood.
Since we just went right back to where we started, I can see that there's probably no way I can convince you of my (or Linus's) position. I'm okay with that, I think I've laid out my arguments fairly well and you have yours. I still disagree with a lot of what you say, but that's fine, in a week or so the only place this argument will exist is in our HN comment history.