More Jargon File

Solving hard problems is a form of mental exercise. It stretches us and I find it very rewarding when I arrive at the solution.

Some problems, however, may be best left alone. There are days where I feel like the poor engineer cited below (emphasis added):

[Kidder] The Soul of a New Machine. Tracy Kidder. Avon. Copyright © 1982. ISBN 0-380-59931-7.

This book (a 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner) documents the adventure of the design of a new Data General computer, the MV-8000 Eagle. It is an amazingly well-done portrait of the hacker mindset — although largely the hardware hacker — done by a complete outsider. It is a bit thin in spots, but with enough technical information to be entertaining to the serious hacker while providing non-technical people a view of what day-to-day life can be like — the fun, the excitement, the disasters.

During one period, when the microcode and logic were glitching at the nanosecond level, one of the overworked engineers departed the company, leaving behind a note on his terminal as his letter of resignation: “I am going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season.”