Re: Coding style - a non-issue

Victor Yodaiken
2001-12-01T03:09:26Z

On Fri, Nov 30, 2001 at 04:50:34PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> You know what the most complex piece of engineering known to man in the
> whole solar system is?
>
> Guess what - it's not Linux, it's not Solaris, and it's not your car.
>
> It's you. And me.
>
> And think about how you and me actually came about - not through any
> complex design.
>
> Right. "sheer luck".

Somehow this does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling about
the length of the next Linux kernel development cycle.

> And don't EVER make the mistake that you can design something better than
> what you get from ruthless massively parallel trial-and-error with a
> feedback cycle. That's giving your intelligence _much_ too much credit.

Linux is what it is because of design, not accident. And you know
that better than anyone.
If mindless rooting about could make a good OS, then we'd all be using
[ in a rare moment of good sense I don't finish this sentence ]

The question is whether Linux can still be designed at
current scale.

> Quite frankly, Sun is doomed. And it has nothing to do with their
> engineering practices or their coding style.

The San Andreas fault?