[TriLUG] A sad comment on our culture

[Matt Flyer via TriLUG]

> Being called an f**ing idiot is a personal attack.  Saying this code is
> f***ing idiotic attacks the code.
>
> You can easily see the difference between commenting on the action  and
> the
> person.
>
My first professional job was doing software development in C and assembly
on an 8-bit (Motorola) embedded processor.  I still recall getting called
into a closed door meeting with the boss, a man named Bill, one afternoon
after I had written some buggy software that made it through QA and the
bugs were caught by the customer.  One particular one that I remember
being pointed out to me was having the dummy version number of 12345-678.

Needless to say, Bill never called me a felding idiot or even saying the
mistakes in the code were idiotic, though they most certainly were.  What
Bill did do was make the list of top bosses that I've ever had and inspire
people to put forth the superior effort because they wanted to.  Years
later, former coworkers would even say that at times when faced with
professional decisions, especially when dealing with another person, they
would ask themselves, "What would Bill do"?

Then again, that is a paid, professional, environment, which perhaps is
different.  Perhaps it's not.