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wat1000006/16/20252 repliesview on HN

False dichotomy. "Writing professionally" is also known as "communicating effectively" and it is part of doing/leading.

Linus made an enormous impact, certainly. He'd have had an even bigger impact if he was less of a caustic dick.

And before you say that there's a tradeoff involved and that genius technical people are just that way, look up Berkson's paradox.


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mrguyorama06/16/2025

Linus is a great example actually, because people pointed out he was being too much of an asshole, and he eventually agreed, and he reduced the toxicity of his rhetoric, but you can bet if the situation called for it, he would still use vulgarity to get his point across.

If you totally ban profanity or vulgarity, all you do is force other words to take up the slack of what people use those words for, and therefore increase ambiguity.

Don't lazily add profanity to the code base because you are a child (ie no, don't use "fuck1" as a variable name FFS) but if there is something truly insane going on, I'm going to write "This is fucking magic" in the code, and my coworkers will know to give that code the respect it deserves.

Consider the fast inverse square root code. Most people only know it because "what the fuck" in a comment. Intensifiers are useful in communication.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PrecisionFStrike

Your code SHOULD have few swears because few situations deserve an intensifier like that, but some situations absolutely call for it.

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squigz06/16/2025

I'm sure many of us have worked with that type of person who is very good at what they do, but also a massive asshole, and then people put up with it, because, well, that's just part of being a genius (as an aside: this sentiment is often applied to other disciplines too; see, Max Verstappen in F1 or Magnus Carlson in chess.)

I learned long ago that no matter how good they are, it's not worth it.

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