Linus Torvalds: Good

“"Regression testing"? What's that? If it compiles, it is good; if it boots up, it is perfect.”

Linus Torvalds

1990s, 1995-99

Perfection

“Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse for some of the brain-damages of Minix.”

Linus Torvalds

Post to comp.os.minix newsgroup, 1992-01-29, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=1992Jan29.231426.20469%40klaava.Helsinki.FI, To Andrew Tanenbaum (author of Minix) during the Tanenbaum-Torvalds debate.
1990s, 1991-94

Hell

“I'm personally convinced that computer science has a lot in common with physics. Both are about how the world works at a rather fundamental level. The difference, of course, is that while in physics you're supposed to figure out how the world is made up, in computer science you create the world. Within the confines of the computer, you're the creator. You get to ultimately control everything that happens. If you're good enough, you can be God. On a small scale.”

Linus Torvalds

2000s, (2001)

God , World , Science , Personality

“(In answer to the question: In the extreme case, if it was just you doing all the code, and the rest of the world quietly used it, would it make sense to give it away free? Unless you're particularly grateful for other free things you've got off the Net, would the answer be No?":)

I don't necessarily think so. It might be true in certain niche areas, but almost any project will give a developer that "feel good" feeling when he has users and he feels he is doing something worthwhile. I really don't think you need all that much "quid pro quo" in programming - most of the good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.”

Linus Torvalds

First Monday Interview with Linus Torvalds: What motivates free software developers?, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, interviewer, 1998‐03-02, 2013-06-02 http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/583/504,
1990s, 1995-99

World , Feeling , Question , Thinking

“Well, I probably won't get too good grades even without you: I had an argument (completely unrelated – not even pertaining to OS's) with the person here at the university that teaches OS design. I wonder when I'll learn :)”

Linus Torvalds

1990s, 1991-94

Learning , Universe , Personality

“It has nothing to do with dinosaurs. Good taste doesn't go out of style”

Linus Torvalds

About the C programming language, vs. C++
Re: RFC Convert builin-mailinfo.c to use The Better String Library., 7 Sep 2007, gmane.comp.version-control.git, 12 Sep 2012 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/57957,
2000s, 2007

“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.”

Linus Torvalds

Attributed
Source: on Desktop_architects: Drivers – below the OS, Fri Aug 3 18:12:57 PDT 2007 https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2007-August/002446.html.

Time

“…git actually has a simple design, with stable and reasonably well-documented data structures. In fact, I'm a huge proponent of designing your code around the data, rather than the other way around, and I think it's one of the reasons git has been fairly successful […] 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.”

Linus Torvalds

Message to Git mailing list, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-06-27, 2006-08-28 http://lwn.net/Articles/193245/,
2000s, 2006

Way , Thinking , Success

“Every time I see some piece of medical research saying that caffeine is good for you, I high-five myself. Because I'm going to live forever.”

Linus Torvalds

Linus' blog: "13744 supplied", 2010-08-03, Torvalds, Linus, 2010-08-23 http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2010/08/13744-supplied.html,
2010s, 2010

Time

“First off, I'm actually perfectly well off. I live in a good-sized house, with a nice yard, with deer occasionally showing up and eating the roses (my wife likes the roses more, I like the deer more, so we don't really mind). I've got three kids, and I know I can pay for their education. What more do I need? The thing is, being a good programmer actually pays pretty well; being acknowledged as being world-class pays even better. I simply didn't need to start a commercial company. And it's just about the least interesting thing I can even imagine. I absolutely hate paperwork. I couldn't take care of employees if I tried. A company that I started would never have succeeded – it's simply not what I'm interested in! So instead, I have a very good life, doing something that I think is really interesting, and something that I think actually matters for people, not just me. And that makes me feel good.”

Linus Torvalds

-- 8/15/07 -- http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/TechGovernment/News.asp?id=44682&PageMem=2 --
Attributed

Life , Hate , People , World

“An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program.”

Linus Torvalds

Linux 1.3.53 CodingStyle documentation, 2011-08-13, 1995 https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst,
1990s, 1995-99

“I like colorized diffs, but let's face it, those particular color choices will make most people decide to pick out their eyes with a fondue fork.

And that's not good. Digging in your eye-sockets with a fondue fork is strictly considered to be bad for your health, and seven out of nine optometrists are dead set against the practice.

So in order to avoid a lot of blind git users, please apply this patch.”

Linus Torvalds

Message to Git mailing list, 2006-06-22, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://lwn.net/Articles/190241/,
2000s, 2006

People , Health , Color , Dead

“Good job. More public indecency, less TSA, that's what I say.”

Linus Torvalds

[In response to http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/07/northeast_portland_man_who_str.html]
2010s, 2012

“See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too;-)”

Linus Torvalds

Post, comp.os.linux.development.system newsgroup, Google Groups, 1996-07-05, Torvalds, Linus, 2016-05-25 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.os.linux.development.system/EG3iv5IcC3Y/6d_v3HZUZLYJ,
1990s, 1995-99

“[GPL] version 3 was not a good "here we give you version 2" and then we try to sneak in this new rules and try force everyone to upgrade; that was the part I disliked. The FSF did really sneaky stuff, downright immoral in my opinion.”

Linus Torvalds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=49m37s
DebConf 14: Q&A with Linus Torvalds
DebConf 2014 Portland
Youtube/Google
49min37
2014
Daniel Gillmore, Ana Guerrerero López.
2010s, 2014

Parting

“… even if the Hurd didn't depend on Linux code (and as far as I know, it does, but since I think they have their design heads firmly up their *sses anyway with that whole microkernel thing, I've never felt it was worth my time even looking at their code), I don't believe a religiously motivated development community can ever generate as good code except by pure chance.”

Linus Torvalds

LKML, September 27, 2006 http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/msg/e4617294bbd1d0f1
2000s, 2006

Communication , Motivation , Thinking , Chance

“I'm not sentimental. Good riddance.”

Linus Torvalds

Linux Nukes 386 Support - Slashdot, Torvalds, Linus, 2012-12-12, 2013-08-10 http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/12/12/1414238/linux-nukes-386-support,
2010s, 2012

“" the most important part of open source is that people are allowed to do what they are good at" and " all that [diversity] stuff is just details and not really important."”

Linus Torvalds

Torvalds, Linus, 2015-01-15, <nowiki>Linus Torvalds on why he isn’t nice: "I don’t care about you"</nowiki>, 2015-01-20 http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/linus-torvalds-on-why-he-isnt-nice-i-dont-care-about-you/,
2010s, 2015

People , Quotes , Parting

“Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.”

Linus Torvalds

https://lwn.net/Articles/193245/

Bad luck