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Reminds me of that Tao of Programming koan (if I remember it rightly) that went something like: The novice, in his frustration, struck the side of his computer
by taneq 5y ago
Reminds me of that Tao of Programming koan (if I remember it rightly) that went something like:
The novice, in his frustration, struck the side of his computer. The master walked over and asked what he was doing. The novice exclaimed, "my computer is not working and I do not know why!" The master admonished him, saying "you cannot solve the problem by striking the computer without knowing what is wrong." Then the master struck the side of the computer, and it worked flawlessly.
(I love this one because one time I was doing a gig and my computer refused to boot. Suspecting that the vibration from being lugged into the car and taken for a long drive had unseated something slightly, I gave it a sharp smack and power cycled it, and it started up fine.)
- bitwize 5y agoIt was one of the AI koans in Jargon: > A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on. > Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong.” > Knight turned the machine off and on. > The machine worked.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- taneq 5y agoYes! Ah well, I got the general gist of it right still. It's been a very long time since I read it. :)
- Sinidir 5y agoThat is hilarious.
- yifanl 5y agoA variation of the "knowing where to hit the hammer" story.