Re: OT: The Geek defense



"tim" <TimJ@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:13s90q7r1bvfj36@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:36:44 +1300, Pete Dashwood wrote:

"tim" <TimJ@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

You must be pretty good if you can write 15,000 lines of
multi-processing kernel code in a weekend.

Well, leaving aside the fact that I AM pretty good :-), it was said with
tongue-in-cheek...:-)

As a matter of record, I once wrote a complete access method for a
mainframe in a Bank, over a weekend...

This is the size of the ext3
file system which is the predominant file system used in Linux.

That was not multi-processing kernel code. That's at another level
of difficulty entirely. From your description, your code assumed a file
system already in place and assumed an access method (RRDS) already in
place. Not that that's a bad thing - the "Google File System" does much
the same thing.

The equivalent to a Linux file system would be to start with a bare disk
and the startio macro and an assembler. You need to make sure your code is
proof against timing errors, it must perform really well for a huge
variety of system architectures (eg Numa with 1024 CPUs through an ASUS
EEE on a Celeron) and applications, and it must be hacker-proof.

Like I said, my comment was not meant seriously...

I understood that, though it struck me that that the possibility existed
that you were just pretending to be tongue in cheek so you could show off
while maintaining plausible deniability. The content of the parent post to
this one may shed some light on this possibility.

Get a life! Do you think I care enough about posts to CLC to be THAT
devious?

I assure you, I don't. It was a flippant comment intended to be...flippant.

As for showing off, I don't think I'm any more guilty of that than other
posters here... perhaps, the kind who might teach their Grandmothers to suck
eggs by explaining where one might start if one decided to write a Linux
file system... :-)


Reiser's file system is a considerable achievement and probably qualifies
him as a geek. By the way Reiser's file system is actually a lot bigger
than ext3 - not sure whether that's a point in its favour or not. The fact
that other people on the kernel mailing list trenchantly criticised it is
neither here nor there - such a style of comment is pretty standard there.


I believe some of the criticisms were valid.

His attorney's tactics smack of desperation I think. But I have no idea
whether he did it.

Yes, I agree. I also have no idea whether he did it and would not make
any kind of judgement until I had reviewed the evidence.

Nevertheless, it is an "interesting" defence...

Pete.

I suppose the attorney is trying to make the point that the Hans is a
different person. So the jury member should not assume that Hans would
behave like them. This is a reasonable and valid point IMHO.

Some have claimed here that programming ability is orthogonal to
personality.

I haven't claimed that here, but I definitely believe there is no particular
"personality" who makes a good programmer.

There MAY be certain personalities who do NOT make good programmers...
people who have limited attention spans, lack self discipline, and are
generally "flighty" , for example. Having trained programmers in various
companies and had a wide cross section of ethnicities, cultures, and
"personalities" to work with, I have arrived at the conclusion stated above.
almost ANYONE of reasonable intelligence and suitably motivated, can learn
to program a computer, particularly in COBOL. Some will argue that knowing
the language doesn't make a programmer, and I would agree. My response to
that would be: given time and practice, programming is a skill that can be
learned. It has always puzzled me why so many (particularly COBOL) people
hesitate to make the leap to a different language, when "programming
ability" is an underlying skill, that really shouldn't be language
dependent...


From my research and experience this is not the case.

Then I'd very much like to see your research and experience.

For
example, the incidence of autism in the children of Microsoft employees is
so high that MSFT has a special program for autistic children (geeks
breeding with geeks).

Please cite a source for such an appalling claim. It may be that the
incidence of autism amongst the children of MS employees is no higher than
it is amongst IBM employees or any other company, but MS have applied their
substantial resorces to the welfare of their staff, better than some other
companies.

Pete.
--
"I used to write COBOL...now I can do anything."


.

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