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In twenty five years with various *NIX-based OSes, I've encountered a few of these. You spend hours and hours and sometimes data digging to get to the root of

In twenty five years with various *NIX-based OSes, I've encountered a few of these. You spend hours and hours and sometimes data digging to get to the root of some bug and it feels so awesome when you find the ultimate cause and fix it. Then you step back and say, what did I just do for the last two days? Two days of your very finite existence on this Earth, spent chasing some stupid software bug! I hope that it makes some difference in the grand scheme of things but it almost never does. We fix these things because they are there.

webkike 9y ago
I feel that, but who cares? Nothing makes a difference to anything. The things that are important are the things we think are important
- bollockitis 9y ago
  Exactly. Meaning is subjective. Chasing down a bug can be an exercise in patience, diligence, and an opportunity to improve one's skill. The activity itself is irrelevant.
nikanj 9y ago
Tangentially related https://xkcd.com/722/ https://xkcd.com/722/
duncan_bayne 9y ago
And because it's a joyous experience when it works. I just introduced my five year old son to the passwd utility, when he asked me if I could change the password on his laptop[1]. The look of pride on his face when he mastered it (blind password entry was a challenge) was priceless. [1] ThinkPad X121e w/ SSD and Xubuntu. X series ThinkPads running Linux make great kids machines. Cheap, decent keyboards, and hard to break.
- keithpeter 9y ago
  X series Thinkpads running Linux make pretty capable machines for adults as well for the same reasons. Back on thread: As an outsider, it seems to me that tracking down obscure bugs is a similar challenge to sorting out edge cases in obscure mathematics.
  - duncan_bayne 9y ago
    That they do :) My work machine is a maxxed-out X220 w/ FreeBSD: https://www.instagram.com/p/BXPY61pFkRK/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BXPY61pFkRK/ I keep my setup scripts in GitLab, so I can spin up a new dev machine pretty quickly: https://gitlab.com/duncan-bayne/freebsd-setup/wikis/home https://gitlab.com/duncan-bayne/freebsd-setup/wikis/home

webkike 9y ago

I feel that, but who cares? Nothing makes a difference to anything. The things that are important are the things we think are important

bollockitis 9y ago
Exactly. Meaning is subjective. Chasing down a bug can be an exercise in patience, diligence, and an opportunity to improve one's skill. The activity itself is irrelevant.

nikanj 9y ago

Tangentially related https://xkcd.com/722/ https://xkcd.com/722/

duncan_bayne 9y ago

And because it's a joyous experience when it works. I just introduced my five year old son to the passwd utility, when he asked me if I could change the password on his laptop[1]. The look of pride on his face when he mastered it (blind password entry was a challenge) was priceless. [1] ThinkPad X121e w/ SSD and Xubuntu. X series ThinkPads running Linux make great kids machines. Cheap, decent keyboards, and hard to break.

keithpeter 9y ago
X series Thinkpads running Linux make pretty capable machines for adults as well for the same reasons. Back on thread: As an outsider, it seems to me that tracking down obscure bugs is a similar challenge to sorting out edge cases in obscure mathematics.
- duncan_bayne 9y ago
  That they do :) My work machine is a maxxed-out X220 w/ FreeBSD: https://www.instagram.com/p/BXPY61pFkRK/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BXPY61pFkRK/ I keep my setup scripts in GitLab, so I can spin up a new dev machine pretty quickly: https://gitlab.com/duncan-bayne/freebsd-setup/wikis/home https://gitlab.com/duncan-bayne/freebsd-setup/wikis/home