Attachment 9854 Details for Bug 20009 – file.diff

[patch] file.diff

file.diff (text/plain), 3.94 KB, created by brooks on 2000-07-18 17:40:01 UTC

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Creator: brooks

Created: 2000-07-18 17:40:01 UTC

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>Index: book.sgml
>===================================================================
>RCS file: /home/ncvs/doc/en_US.ISO_8859-1/books/faq/book.sgml,v
>retrieving revision 1.70
>diff -u -r1.70 book.sgml
>--- book.sgml	2000/07/11 21:36:22	1.70
>+++ book.sgml	2000/07/18 05:50:06
>@@ -8782,6 +8782,85 @@
> 
> </answer></qandaentry>
> 
>+      <qandaentry>
>+	<question>
>+	  <para>Why should I care what color the bikeshed is?</para>
>+	</question>
>+
>+	<answer>
>+	  <para>The really, really short answer is that you shouldn't.
>+	    The somewhat longer answer is that just because you are
>+	    capable of building a bikeshed doesn't mean you should stop
>+	    others from building one just because you don't like the
>+	    color they plan to paint it.  This is a metaphor indicating
>+	    that you need not argue about every little feature just
>+	    because you know enough to do so.  Some people have
>+	    commented that the amount of noise generated by a change is
>+	    inversely proportional to the complexity of the
>+	    change.</para>
>+
>+	  <para>The longer and more complete answer is that after a very
>+	    long argument about whether &man.sleep.1; should take
>+	    fractional second arguments, Poul-Henning Kamp posted a long
>+	    message entitled <quote><ulink url="http://www.FreeBSD.org/cgi/getmsg.cgi?fetch=506636+517178+/usr/local/www/db/text/1999/freebsd-hackers/19991003.freebsd-hackers">A
>+	    bike shed (any colour will do) on greener
>+	    grass...</ulink></quote>.  The appropriate portions of that
>+	    message are quoted below.</para>
>+
>+
>+	  <blockquote>
>+	    <title>Excerpts from <quote>A bike shed (any colour will do) on
>+	      greener grass...</quote></title>
>+
>+	    <attribution>Poul-Henning Kamp on freebsd-hackers, October
>+	      2, 1999</attribution>
>+
>+	    <para>"What is it about this bike shed ?" Some of you have
>+	      asked me.</para>
>+
>+	    <para> It's a long story, or rather it's an old story, but
>+	      it is quite short actually.  C. Northcote Parkinson wrote
>+	      a book in the early 1960'ies, called "Parkinson's Law",
>+	      which contains a lot of insight into the dynamics of
>+	      management.</para>
>+
>+	    <para>[snip a bit of commentary on the book]</para>
>+
>+	    <para>In the specific example involving the bike shed, the
>+	      other vital component is an atomic power-plant, I guess
>+	      that illustrates the age of the book.</para>
>+
>+	    <para>Parkinson shows how you can go in to the board of
>+	      directors and get approval for building a multi-million or
>+	      even billion dollar atomic power plant, but if you want to
>+	      build a bike shed you will be tangled up in endless
>+	      discussions.</para>
>+
>+	    <para>Parkinson explains that this is because an atomic
>+	      plant is so vast, so expensive and so complicated that
>+	      people cannot grasp it, and rather than try, they fall
>+	      back on the assumption that somebody else checked all the
>+	      details before it got this far.   Richard P. Feynmann
>+	      gives a couple of interesting, and very much to the point,
>+	      examples relating to Los Alamos in his books.</para>
>+
>+	    <para>A bike shed on the other hand.  Anyone can build one
>+	      of those over a weekend, and still have time to watch the
>+	      game on TV.  So no matter how well prepared, no matter how
>+	      reasonable you are with your proposal, somebody will seize
>+	      the chance to show that he is doing his job, that he is
>+	      paying attention, that he is *here*.</para>
>+
>+	    <para>In Denmark we call it "setting your fingerprint".  It
>+	      is about personal pride and prestige, it is about being
>+	      able to point somewhere and say "There!  *I* did that."
>+	      It is a strong trait in politicians, but present in most
>+	      people given the chance.  Just think about footsteps in
>+	      wet cement.</para>
>+	  </blockquote>
>+	</answer>
>+      </qandaentry>
>+
> <qandaentry><question>
> <para>How many FreeBSD hackers does it take to change a lightbulb?</para></question><answer>

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