ESR paints himself as a big bully here too. If that is how he interacts with other people, then it helps me to understand why he dropped out of school and never really had a traditional job. (Note: I had to find that info on Wikipedia because I have never heard of this guy; ironic considering he touted starting the open-source movement and likened himself to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds).

I am very very thankful that our industry has evolved beyond this type of character.

"""I indicated to him that I thought somebody was probably having a little joke at his expense, and promised him an email reply. Here is my reply in its entirety:

...

UPDATE: For those of you who missed the subtlety (which was a surprising lot of you) I was quite polite to this guy on the phone. """

It seems to me that in the phone conversation, ESR made it pretty clear that he was not seriously considering it, and that he was going to reply in a strange manner.

I think he has a weird sense of humor, for sure, but I don't think he was particularly bullying that particular recruiter -- he was putting on a show of bullying Microsoft, because that was both his thing (as an early Open Source proponent) and fashionable at the time.

Yeah when I was typing my reply I forgot that he had a prior conversation over the phone. Still, the ego comes off a little too strong for my taste. I'm curious about how he feels today with Microsoft starting to embrace the open source community more.

He was kinda-sorta relevant in the 90s? I think? I like his Unix programming book.

Currently, his hobby appears to be posting wingnut craziness on his website.

Ditto.

The Art of Unix Programming is a great read.

Just make sure you don't read his blog.

The hardest part for me is that sometimes, just sometimes, his blog has some great little nuggets of insight and usefulness, but the signal to man-with-opinions-and-noone-said-no is just ... too low. :(

I think we haven't evolved past this. Torvalds seems to be exactly this kind of character.