I don't know. If there's any kind of software that can get emotional and hurt, it's a compiler.

Good point. I've been misinterpreted by some pretty emotional interpreters, too.

I'm not going to name and shame the interpreter in question, but the person who originally wrote it was the same person who wrote the compiler in question, Richard M Stallman. ;)

http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-doctor.html

"Hey, Michaelangelo, what is that piece of shit you're carving?"

I don't think so.

1. The letter was to a user of the compiler, not to its author.

2. Linus is a Finn, their culture is a bit different, people who post on LKML know this.

Well, for one thing a C compiler is a considerably more utilitarian creation - "Hey, McDonalds, Big Macs taste like shit".

And of course even purely artistic creations have always been subject to quite blunt appraisals - you won't have to look far to find them about, say, Jackson Pollock's paintings.

Pollack and others were funded through CIA programmes to demonstrate the power of the creative free thinking West.

Listening to the God-awful Jazz they play at my local coffee shops makes me wonder just how effective this campaign of psychological warfare was.

If it's your product you take any criticism personally especially if it some hack who messed up and blamed your baby instead of coughing to your cockup - as the tech editor of the guardian did to one of my products!

Thank you!