Writing a wall of text with insults and a low amount of real communiction is not effective. It's also nothing to do with political correct. Linus' second post in the mail thread is much more technical and much less insulting.. more effective.
Well, posting an angry rant is beneficial in at least one way: It's guaranteed to be read by all the kernel devs. Hell, we're reading it, and I doubt everyone on HN is a kernel dev or follows their mailing list. If Linus had been more polite, perhaps his comment would only have been noticed by those involved with the patch in question. Instead, he has simultaneously corrected Mauro's personal misconception and reinforced an important design constraint in the minds of all budding kernel devs.
I do agree that the second post was more effective in explaining Mauro's mistake, and would prefer myself to err on the side of politeness, but I suppose there can be benefits to acting like an asshole from time to time. Some changes are not ok to make, and perhaps it's justifiable to "make an example out of someone" from time to time to ensure that everyone understands why.
You are saying that a man that brought to reality one of the biggest and successful software projects in the history of humanity is wrong calling mediocrity for what it is.
I don't know if you have already accomplished something like that, if you don't go ahead and prove that you can with your political correct methods.
I don't understand how linus being a good programmer makes him less wrong.
There are a lot of people who are nice and successful software project leaders. Being a dick is not inherent to being successful in the software field.
I think that what matters the most about Linus is not being a good programmer (in the beginning of linux maybe it was important) but his capacities for project management, maintaining a vision for so long, and calling shit "shit" when is necesary for the goodness of the project.
