commit 0010e9c98d8fe756f7fb0d97d6fded940847648a
parent fc8263cbf34397ef79326b55d7f16fce7972a983
Author: Kévin Le Gouguec <kevin.legouguec@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2019 09:30:30 +0200
Re-watch Oral Tradition in Software Engineering
Take notes this time.
Diffstat:
2 files changed, 56 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
diff --git a/reviews/stack.org b/reviews/stack.org
@@ -1,8 +1,6 @@
A list of things I plan on reading someday, or have read but have not
yet commented on.
+* The Soul of a New Machine
* [[http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc][Bryan Cantrill stuff]]
-** oral tradition in software engineering
-*** The Soul of a New Machine
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm1GJMp0QN4&t=17m49s][Surge 2013 lightning talks: benchmarking gone wrong]]
-
diff --git a/reviews/talks.md b/reviews/talks.md
@@ -140,3 +140,58 @@ Rust can handle C functions, structures, unions and pointers.
Soon in stable Rust™: varargs, smaller binaries, robust inline
assembly (there already exist builtins for SIMD instructions),
bfloat16, more structure layout shenanigans.
+
+
+# Bryan Cantrill - Oral Tradition in Software Engineering
+
+"Oral tradition" as in "educational stories we pass down for
+generations", not necessarily actually oral.
+
+- USENET's "[Story of Mel]" is one of our oldest enduring "tales".
+
+- Cantrill attributes the scarcity of 80s and 90s lore to the "deeply
+ proprietary" culture of the era.
+ - Though he does manage to squeeze in an emotional reading of a
+ Hemingway parody called "[The Bug Count Also Rises]".
+
+ > Many days he stood for a long time and watched the rain and
+ > the shuttles and drank his double-tall mochas. With the
+ > mochas he was strong.
+
+ > […]
+
+ > They sat silently for awhile, then he asked Michaels, “I
+ > need you to triage for me.”
+
+ > Michaels looked down. “I don't do that anymore,” he said.
+
+- The 00s introduced a new era, where re-telling a story became as
+ simple as sharing the link to a video.
+
+- Even without exploring the Internet, our own source bases are
+ "pulsing with narrative".
+
+- Ends with a historical survey of UNIX lore buried in the codebase.
+ - To Roger Faulkner suggesting asking Dennis Ritchie to settle the
+ debate on why C lacks a logical XOR:
+
+ > … You can *ask* The Lord?
+
+ (Spoiler: to Cantrill's dismay, it was intentional, because such
+ an operator could not short-circuit, and "`(A!=0) ^ (B!=0)`
+ isn't that much worse to write", though I personally find it
+ less *legible* than `A ^^ B`.)
+
+ The point to the otherwise entertaining story being: *people are
+ going to care about your intent*. Younger generations yearn to
+ understand what's going on and how they can perpetuate their
+ forebears's legacy.
+
+ (… They also need enough context to evaluate how valuable this
+ legacy truly is.)
+
+ > I really cared about what Dennis thought! (… Before I knew
+ > he was wrong.)
+
+[Story of Mel]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Mel
+[The Bug Count Also Rises]: http://www.workpump.com/bugcount/bugcount.html
