matt__rose

Also, the fact is, that from a Q&A standpoint, a memcpy() that "just does the right thing" is simply _better_. Quoting standards is just stupid, when there's two simple choices: "it works" or "it doesn't work because bugs happen".

Standards are paper. I use paper to wipe my butt every day. That's how much that paper is worth.

Reality is what matters. When glibc changed memcpy, it created problems. Saying "not my problem" is irresponsible when it hurts users.

And pointing fingers at Adobe and blaming them for creating bad software is _doubly_ irresponsible if you are then not willing to set a higher standard for your own project. And "not my problem" is not a higher standard.

So please just fix it.

The easy and technically nice solution is to just say "we'll alias memcpy to memmove - good software should never notice, and it helps bad software and a known problem".

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This is why Linus is widely considered a good steward, and Ulrich had to be removed from glibc.

Yes, they both had abrasive mannerisms, yes they sometimes said things that wouldn't pass fortune 500 HR policy.

The difference is: Ulrich seemed to care more about some kind of technical "correct-ness", and anything that didn't fit in his mental model was considered wrong, and nothing else mattered.

Linus deeply cares about the user experience. the kernel has a strict no-regressions policy for this reason. If it used to work before and now it doesn't, this needs to be fixed in the kernel

Like this case, most of the cases where Linus uses salty language comes down to various kernel developers not following this policy, then complaining when their patch doesn't get accepted.

Edited for formatting

Comment · 12 years ago

Never delete code. This is why you have git or svn, or whatever your tool of choice is. Never, ever delete code. You may think it's dumb, you may think it's crap, or useless or whatever, but in 2 years, you'll think. "Damn, I remember doing this already, don't I have some code in somewhere?" And you will.

You may look at it and rewrite huge chunks because you're a far better programmer now, but trust me, re-writing code is way easier than writing it from scratch

Comment · 12 years ago

If it all works, it'll be pretty impressive

Comment · 12 years ago

Interesting perspective from esr on the rationale behind the takeover of Andover in the comments

Comment · 12 years ago

Fascinating insight into a bit of Jobs life that is mostly overlooked, except as a "He used to be a hippy" anecdote. Steve Silberman does a good job of teasing out the bits and assembling a better vision of Jobs's belief system, and how it informed his work at Apple and NeXT

Comment · 12 years ago

Google now will occasionally alert me to heavy traffic on the way home. That's about it.

Comment · 12 years ago

Why would you think calling to_a on an object would NOT turn that into an array?? That's what to_a does

Comment · 12 years ago

I think they missed an opportunity. They should have changed "master" to "mistress"...