> Monotone, the source control system whose internal design Git is based on

Huh? They both use content-addressing (identify everything by its hash) which leads to the nice property that history is cryptographically immutable, but at least Mercurial also does (and is also older than Git).

But other than that, they're fairly different.

The concept of what a branch is is fundamentally different. In Git, it's a pointer to a revision, and has a home (it's mutable scalar that a URI could point to). In Monotone, a branch is "all revisions - whether or not you know about them - that have a certificate that you trust that says they're in that branch".

(I describe that as Monotone being distributed as in Usenet, while Git is federated as in Email.)

Monotone treats a file as an object (so it can be explicitly renamed or deleted), where Git only has "this tree has a file at this location" and then can infer renames or deletes or creates (or copies or splits or whatever).

Plus of course there's the whole "monotone uses SQLite" thing.

This is unfair. I worked with Graydon years ago and he was always pleasant, helpful, and interesting. I wish I worked with more people like Graydon.

Regardless, you are right to point out two of his contributions that have left an indelible mark on our industry.

> Graydon also wrote Monotone, the source control system whose internal design Git is based on.

Huh. I wonder if that played a part in Torvald’s being open to Rust in the Linux kernel.

It's an interesting question, but I suspect that the technical attributes of Rust as it exists today play a much larger part in Torvalds's choices than does its origin many years ago.

In particular, Rust is less error-prone than C, rather than more so (as is arguably the case for C++), and it does not require the importation of a large runtime into the kernel. And, unlike for example Lua or Scheme, a number of kernels have already been written in Rust, some of which are already fairly full-featured: https://github.com/flosse/rust-os-comparison

Also Rust semantics is more amenable to formal verification. This might have major implications in 5-10 years time.

Also the core code (in C++) of the Stellar consensus-based cryptocurrency.

> Interpersonally he can be prickly sometimes

Aren't we all? What's the point in saying this? I find him quite pleasant.

I want people who don't find him quite pleasant to read the slides anyway instead of replying to my comment with "well actually Graydon is the kind of person who..."

I'm glad to hear you get along well.

I think it’s a bit unfair to many people to try to normalize prickliness by saying everyone is.

(to be clear, I did find your post funny, so this is friendly feedback.)

> How much choice do you think prickly people have in who they become?

It boils down to if you think being an asshole is congenital and impervious to efforts at self-improvement.

Personally I think we humans all hunger for love and acceptance, and a generous dose of love is Alchemical and can transmutate the lead of assholeness to the gold of beautiful conduct. So next time you see an asshole, give them a hug.

> I have little choice

As a last resort, you could always self-isolate. :}

I’m saying not to dismiss prickliness by declaring that everyone is. Everyone isn’t. Some, many, most? are, sure.

“There’s no point singling out people who steal bulk bin candies. Everyone does it.” is the sentiment that sits wrong with me.

Virtually everyone is prickly when suitably provoked. Some people are just more easily provoked to prickliness than others. Some of it is probably just temperament, but for celebrities in the tech space, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have to deal with an aggravating number of annoying people and that sours their disposition.

All that is a long way of saying have some empathy at the very least and some sympathy if possible.

What if, instead, somebody could offer you a path to change, as unlikely as it may seem? How unwilling are you?

I wish people would find a new word, instead of persisting in using gutter English. Not just back alley, but gutter.

The word “prickly” is neither back alley nor gutter English. The relevant dictionary definition is “ready to take offense” or “easily irritated”. Here’s the etymology: https://www.etymonline.com/word/prickly

I was referring to “asshole”.

Did somebody wake up on the wrong side of the bed?

Maybe reading the literal words, we are all a little prickly sometimes. The intent is probably a polite way of saying "he is frequently an asshole for no apparent reason".

No, if I had meant that, I would have said it that way, probably because (much as I wish it were otherwise) I am frequently an asshole.

You’re being a bit prickly about this.

Ha!

Oh I had no clue he was behind monotone nor git's lifting it.

Have you both collaborated on something ?

Linus was hanging out in the monotone list for a bit and was a little frustrated with the performance at the time. https://lwn.net/Articles/132161/

interesting bit of history

also reread about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_(software)

it's funny how like a few other projects, the original high level interface (cogito) got canned and the low level one ended up the main. I've read this about apt (which was a sub project of a big debian graphical package management) and lisp too.