being short with people
being short with people
Posted Feb 18, 2010 19:22 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544)In reply to: being short with people by pboddie
Parent article: Open source: dangerous to computing education? (opensource.com)
Some people like to be seen having a discussion, or an argument, with a respected person.
If I have a silly idea about Alan Cox's part of the kernel, and if I thought he'd entertain a discussion of this idea, I might be very happy to have everyone see me and Alan Cox debating technical details. Few people will spot that my half of the conversation is nonsense :-) Makes me look good.
But, if I knew that I'd get publicly called an idiot, I'd be a lot more careful about the quality of my suggestions.
Posted Feb 19, 2010 12:20 UTC (Fri)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link]
Yes, but Alan Cox doesn't need to call you an idiot (and in my narrow experience with dealing with him, he wouldn't) in order to stop you looking good. He'd just need to challenge you on the technical aspects of any idea - for the "code is everything" school of thought, that's a decent implementation of such an idea - and leave you struggling to "show him the code" or, without needing to actually say it, "put up or shut up". People in positions of genuine authority don't need to lash out at others. Doing so is often a sign of insecurity: that someone feels the need to convince others that they have more influence than they may actually have in practice.
being short with people
If I have a silly idea about Alan Cox's part of the kernel, and if I thought he'd entertain a discussion of this idea, I might be very happy to have everyone see me and Alan Cox debating technical details. Few people will spot that my half of the conversation is nonsense :-) Makes me look good.