Notices by Rob Pike (robpike@hachyderm.io), page 3

@timbray 2025 will knock your socks off, then, assuming we live that long.

My talk "Go: What we got right, what we got wrong" at GopherConAU is now available to all.

VIdeo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE5Tpp2BSGw

Blog: https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2024/01/what-we-got-right-what-we-got-wrong.html

The content is the same except for the Q&A being unique to the video.

I wonder if there is data somewhere about the number of dead links. I would like to have data supporting my hunch that they represent a growing fraction of all the links out there. Sure feels that way, although I suspect with most web sites being dynamic, it's unquantifiable.

Data is _not_ forever. May Shannon bless the the Internet Archive.

Idiocy comes in bottles.

twenty-twenty-effing-four??

Long ago, I was an angry young man who railed against all the injustices of the world, but now time has passed, I have matured and learned so much more about things, and now I am an angrier old man.

I was watching the 30th anniversary chat between John Romero and John Carmack, and the moderator asked what they thought of being compared to Lennon and McCartney. Carmack's answer pointed out that the Beatles were an "overnight success" only after years of constantly composing and playing live. Similarly, Doom was an "overnight success" only after id Games had made 30 prior games - and like the Beatles, learned how to do it right.

(more)

This link captures the confusion about how to pronounce "fsck":

https://lwn.net/Articles/190223/

Here's the truth. Ted Kowalski, username frodo, may he rest in peace, was the original author, just down the hall from my office in Murray Hill, and his name for the program had a 'u' where there is now an 's'. Management made him change it for distribution, but they couldn't make him change his pronunciation.

@joakinen

That site takes them out of context (a 1987 OS graduate course), drops rule 6, and doesn't explain that the advice is very old.

http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/pikestyle

(The date is wrong on this, but the whole thing is there.)

@whenning @timbray That and decades of experience debugging important things that break in the real world.

@whenning @timbray Not for #ifdefs they won't.

@timbray @whenning I was going to suggest you use m4, but it sounds like you already have a plan.

I understand the value of #ifdefs but lexically directed conditional compilation causes just far too much trouble. The potential for abuse is too high. It's simply not a good idea to have them generally available. Build a custom one for your problem and we'll all be happier.

I saw a URL for Vinegar Dens, and thought that might be a good place for me, offsetting my caustic personality. But then I realized it was Vine Gardens and meant for someone more horticultural.

Some years ago, I was walking from the kitchen back to my office at Google, carrying a piece of cake on a plate flat on my hand. There was a path between the desks, and walking towards me was Henry Kissinger followed by Eric Schmidt.

Eric saw what I had in my hand, and locked eyes with me. I was as tempted as I have ever been, but in the interests of world peace and keeping my job I kept my hand where it was, where it then passed just a few inches from Kissinger's face.

Life on the international web.

Irony.

@pelavarre I don't understand the question.

"Your shipment will be delivered tomorrow.
Your shipment will be delivered today.
Your shipment will arrive between 2 and 4pm today.
Your shipment is on the truck for delivery.
Your shipment is 5 minutes away.
Your shipment has been delivered.
Here is your proof of delivery.
Please tell us how we did with your shipment."

Will you please shut the *&@# up about it? Just give me my package and let me get on with my life. I'm not looking for a friend in the post office.

@dberkholz Home.

The thing is, files, at least as most OSes used to treat them, were data with a name and access rights. Unix generalized the utility of having naming and access rights for data by making the data's interpretation up to the program doing the asking.

Today, "apps" and "widgets" and whatever else own the files, not letting other programs use them. You can't grep a spreadsheet or put a PDF into your Photos app (the thing that actually triggered this today)...