12 Linus Torvalds Quotes on Design

Linus Torvalds quotes on design

8. If you need more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix your program.

11. The main reason there are no raw devices [in Linux] is that I personally think that raw devices are a stupid idea.

16. Portability is for people who cannot write new programs.

39. I chose 1000 originally partly as a way to make sure that people that assumed HZ was 100 would get a swift kick in the pants.

41. The fact that ACPI was designed by a group of monkeys high on LSD, and is some of the worst designs in the industry obviously makes running it at _any_ point pretty damn ugly.

43. I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE. This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do. Please, just tell people to use KDE.

44. My personal opinion of Mach is not very high. Frankly, it's a piece of crap. It contains all the design mistakes you can make, and even managed to make up a few of its own.

49. I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.

50. EFI is this other Intel brain-damage (the first one being ACPI).

64. Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small _trivial_ project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way _useful_ first, and then others will say 'hey, that _almost_ works for me', and they'll get involved in the project.

70. The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.

74. 'Guess what? Wheels have been round for a really long time, and anybody who 'reinvents' the new wheel is generally considered a crackpot. It turns out that 'round' is simply a good form for a wheel to have. It may be boring, but it just tends to roll better than a square, and 'hipness' has nothing what-so-ever to do with it.'