Evolution Vs Revolution
Opening Mood : Attentive.. Running stress tests “Only stupid people think they should throw away old proven concepts. What happens quite often in academia in particular is that you find a problem you want to fix, and you re-design the whole system around your fix. This is how we get crap like microkernels. They have ‘an agenda’, and that’s the _worst_ thing you can have when designing software. You fixate on some perceived problem, and the end result is that yes, maybe you fixed _that_ problem, but in the meantime you also generated a whole new of issues - usually things that were solved by the original approach. The UNIX/Linux approach is a very pragmatic thing - leave the things that work well alone. There’s no point in re-inventing the whole system just because of some small perceived flaws… And many things _can_ be done without throwing out old designs. Implementation improvements are quite possible without trying to make something totally new to the outside. That’s how things like the dcache come about, for example - keeping the standard old boring UNIX filesystem approach, while internally caching it in new ways, improving performance tremendously. Not throwing out the baby with the bath-water doesn’t mean that you cannot improve the system. I’m only arguing against stupid people who think they need a revolution to improve - most real improvements are evolutionary.” Now I know why I love this field so much. Just love the idea - to evolve, to grow, to change, to adapt. Dynamic, eh? You bet it is Who made the statement “Have your head in the clouds and your feet firmly rooted to the earth“
Opening Song : None.
This is what the Benevolent Dictator for Life ( read Linus Torvalds ) had to say about Evolution vs Revolution.
But, if you can’t imagine how to do that, think of climbing a mountain, and you’ll know how.
Closing Song: None
Closing Mood: My tests need me. Something not going according to the plan. Need some Change!
