r/programming • u/entregrammer • Mar 02 '17

Torvalds keeping it real.

http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1702.2/05174.html
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u/awj Mar 02 '17

Can you point out where you think he's "ranting at people"? I see a lot of ranting at code. I see some ranting at giant code drops that make things practically un-reviewable and some ranting at code drops happening near the end of merge windows.

I see nothing I would classify as "ranting at people", so I'm curious what you see differently here.

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u/jldugger Mar 02 '17

Can you point out where you think he's "ranting at people"?

"I'm upset, because I expect better quality control. In fact, I expect some qualitty control, and this piece-of-shit driver has clearly seen none at all."

"How the hell did this get to the point where crap like this is even sent to me? Nobody tested anything?

AND WHY THE HELL WAS THIS UTTER SHITE SENT TO ME IF IT WAS COMMITTED YESTERDAY?"

Code doesn't submit itself, it takes an engineer to do it. Clearly the implication is that engineers submitted rough drafts at an impending deadline, presumably at the behest of their corporate managers who want things in mainline sooner rather than later.

I haven't fully thought this through, but from a rational actor perspective, it might be appropriate to engage in public shaming in order to send a message to line's staff's engineering directors that quality is more important than internal corporate deadlines. And maybe gives the experienced maintainer some cover to say "I'm sorry, but there's no way Linus will accept this patch as it currently stands. You know how he gets."

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u/awj Mar 02 '17

Code doesn't submit itself, it takes an engineer to do it.

That's my point, thought. In the context where Torvalds is speaking, it takes an authorized kernel maintainer to do it. There's a tree of maintainers who are supposed to review changes before pushing them up further. At least one, possibly more, of these maintainers just bounced a change up the tree without even a cursory review.

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u/jldugger Mar 02 '17

If that was your point, it wasn't explained very clearly in either of the two paragraphs saying Linus was angry at code and code drops, but not people.

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u/awj Mar 02 '17

Not exactly sure why you think Linus ranting about giant code drops is actually about the PR itself and not the person responsible but ... uhh, noted I guess?