Linus Torvalds Rejects Garbage Code

Today, Linus Torvalds told a Google engineer that his code (updating RISC-V support in the Linux kernel) is “garbage” which “makes the world actively a worse place to live”. Adding that the Google engineer’s code needs to “get bent”. As you might have guessed, Torvalds has rejected that code submission. From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> To: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com> Cc: linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] RISC-V patches for the 6.17 merge window, Part 1 Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2025 07:38:32 +0300 Message-ID: <CAHk-5=YJ0U0d2G3X0iYVQO3J0s0D9j6j6-2D9W2g3y6@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <mhng-755C8B1-BCD6-4D32-82D5-CE37669F176C5@googlemail.com> On Fri, 8 Aug 2025 at 11:19, Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com> wrote: > RISC-V Patches for the 6.17 Merge Window, Part 1 No. This is garbage and it came in too late. I asked for early pull requests because I'm traveling, and if you can't follow that rule, at least make the pull request good! This adds various garbage that isn't RISC-V specific to generic header files. And by "garbage" I really mean it. This is stuff that nobody should ever send me, never mind late in a merge window. Like this crazy and pointless make_u32 from two_u16() helper. That thing makes the world actively a worse place to live. It's useless garbage that makes any user incomprehensible, and actively *WORSE* than not using that stupid "helper". If you write the code out as (a << 16) | b, you know what it does, and which is the high word. Maybe you need to add a cast to make sure that 'b' doesn't have high bits that pollutes the end result, so maybe it's not going to be exactly pretty, but it's not going to be wrong and incomprehensible either. In contrast, if you write make_u32 from two_u16(a,b) you have not a f*sing clue what the word order is. IOW, you just made the *WORSE*, and you added that "helper" to a generic non-RISC-V file where people are apparently supposed to use it to make *WORSE* code worse too. So no. Things like this need to get bent. It does not go into generic header files, and it damn well does not happen late in the merge window.

A screenshot of a post reports that Linus Torvalds rejected a Google engineer’s RISC-V Linux kernel code as “garbage” and said it “makes the world actively a worse place to live.” The attached email shows Torvalds’ famously blunt code-review response, mocking an unnecessary helper and telling the submission to “get bent.” The meme is used as a reaction to harsh technical criticism, rejected pull requests, or confidently bad code. EN: A screenshot of a post reports that Linus Torvalds rejected a Google engineer’s RISC-V Linux kernel code as “garbage” and said it “makes the world actively a worse place to live.” The attached email shows Torvalds’ famously blunt code-review response, mocking an unnecessary helper and telling the submission to “get bent.” The meme is used as a reaction to harsh technical criticism, rejected pull requests, or confidently bad code.

• @gentoomemes / 18167 2025-08-09