Some reflections on a harsh critic by Linus Torvalds on a RISC-V Linux kernel contribution. 

Linus Torvalds and the Supposedly “Garbage Code”

by Giovanni Dicanio

From the article:

So, the correct explicit code is not something as simple as “(a << 16) + b”.

[...] As you can see, the type casts, the parentheses, the potential bit-masking, do require attention. But once you get the code right, you can safely and conveniently reuse it every time you need!