2010-08-16

Learning from Others

I found this article via some link or another today, and while I am not in any position to talk about Google or Pixar cultures.. the general tenets seem sound:

...is a culture where the fear of complacency is a strong motivator, where new problems are identified, discussed, and addressed openly and honestly, all of which requires humility.

Fedora can be very good about 'openness' and 'honesty', but I rarely see good cases of humility... but much more of humiliate. There are days where I just want to pull the car over to the side of the road, and say another line my dad and grandfather used a lot: "I don't care which one of you started it.. you are all in for it now." [Well ok I am cleaning up the language a bit.. my father was a sailor and my grandfather a sergeant in the army.]

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course, by projecting an attitude of being superior to the idiots arguing - as you put it, being 'like my father talking to my self-absorbed teenage self' you are being just as smug and self-congratulatory as any of them (or us, if you're including me :>); you can't claim the same relationship to those arguing as your father could claim to you.

The 'you're all in for it' option has the same problem as the current false start rule in athletics: it's too easy to game. If you don't mind getting in trouble yourself you can take everyone else down with you. (No, my five year old mind wouldn't have expressed it that way, but it was certainly capable of wrapping itself around the concept...)

Stephen Smoogen said...

[Edited because I spell like a drunken sailor on demirol.]

Actually I thought I was saying "Yes I felt this way but I wasn't acting on it." Sorry for not being clearer. In my grumpiness, I have not removed anyone from any mailing lists, I have not turned off people's logins or removed packages from build queues. I have just felt the urge to tell people to shut up and let those driving get through traffic before you start up screaming at each other again.

I can claim a similar relationship with the arguers because basically 10 years ago I was doing the same things. And all it did was make people more angry and less likely to work with me. It took me twice as long to get stuff done than others because I was being an ass when if I had listened, rephrased, it would have gone a lot smoother. [Because those people who did do those things were the ones who actually got stuff done.]