From owner-freebsd-current Fri Jan 29 00:16:56 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id AAA11121 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 00:16:56 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (zippy.cdrom.com [204.216.27.228]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id AAA11112 for ; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 00:16:54 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jkh@zippy.cdrom.com) Received: from zippy.cdrom.com (localhost.cdrom.com [127.0.0.1]) by zippy.cdrom.com (8.9.2/8.9.1) with ESMTP id AAA07008; Fri, 29 Jan 1999 00:16:54 -0800 (PST) To: John Birrell cc: grog@lemis.com (Greg Lehey), julian@whistle.com, bde@zeta.org.au, chris@netmonger.net, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: btokup().. patch to STYLE(9) (fwd) In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 29 Jan 1999 16:26:53 +1100." <199901290526.QAA12656@cimlogic.com.au> Date: Fri, 29 Jan 1999 00:16:53 -0800 Message-ID: <7004.917597813@zippy.cdrom.com> From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > We spend so much of our time looking up our own collective asses searching > for the meaning of life that it is no wonder FreeBSD doesn't feel like it > has a clear direction for the future. All people seem to want to do is > stomp on others who try to contribute something. I think the amount of finger stomping could definitely go down and I would support such an initiative highly, but I would just like to also point out, before people throw the baby out with the bathwater here, that our collective stodginess can often be a real plus in an environment where many things are changing rapidly, too. It's a common impulse among engineers to attack each and every problem as it comes up, solve it "somehow", and then move on to the next challenge. Unfortunately, these early solutions are often proven to be wrong or just plain evil, and we've definitely stopped ourselves from doing stupid things at least 5 times for every time we've also stopped ourselves from doing something useful. Obviously one would prefer a situation where one NEVER held back from doing useful things, but it's not always possible to tell the difference until hindsight has kicked in. :-) Let's also not forget the fact that most of us have no clue about where FreeBSD is going, even those "at the helm", and it would be foolish to make a bunch of 5 year plans without really knowing what the next year held in store for us. I could perhaps try to make some predictions about this and formulate strategy, but I'd probably be wrong since I'm also the guy who sold Yahoo stock at $37. Don't listen to me at all when it comes to predicting this industry's trends. :-) - Jordan To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message