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Comment by mkramlich | Hacker News Reader

Great nuance and insight! That feels like part of it.

When I'm wearing the Software Engineer hat, yes, the entire world can fail if a single nit is imperfect. But when we wear the Human Conversing or Persuading hat I expect and indeed enjoy seeing and using a more fuzzy logic. I expect more buffer and assume-I'm-not-an-idiot-kid-please-get-off-my-lawn-been-there-done-that-have-the-tee-shirt-thanks.

Compilers and CPUs are the world's most productive utter idiots. The best engineers adjust their thoughts to see them and emulate them, but sometimes this backfires when they forget to exit that mode.

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Unfortunately, I don't think "aha!-you're-not-exactly-right" kind of people are going away anytime soon, they've been around on the net since I first laid mouse on it (the 90s, I'm not that old) and they've conquered the technical forums for a reason. Some people simply have that sort of mindset, one just needs to wear the "deal with it" hat and get over it.

In fact, those people are very useful and most of them have helped me from time to time, so I'm grateful for them.

Side note: >> assume-I'm-not-an-idiot-kid-please-get-off-my-lawn-been-there-done-that-have-the-tee-shirt-thanks

Thank you for that, I'll use it sometime, not sure why or when, but it's so funny I must! :D

ha. your welcome!

maybe turn it into a C poem and wear as a T-shirt?

I once had the following printed on a T-shirt and wore to a Meetup.com event here in Colorado, and out of the crowd an early Bell Labs alumnus (C/UNIX era) emerged and tried to recruit me:

    while (!(success = try()));

perhaps:

    void whatever(params) {
        assert assume_im_not_an_idiot_kid_please_get_off_my_lawn_been_there_done_that_have_the_shirt_thanks(params);
        ...
    }

haha that's hilarious, I don't think I have enough rep to make my voting count, but I nevertheless upvoted you just in case.

And I should warn you! I WILL make a T-shirt and give you credit.

consider me forewarned. if in twenty years I'm retired living on a golden yacht sailing the icy seas of Europa I hope a non-trivial portion of my income is coming from the royalties on the sales of that T-shirt.

and/or from the earnings on my book series The Dread Space Pirate Richard. (srsly)

or... savings from my day job. a good strategy has several fallbacks. :-P

Oh hey, you wrote that? You might have mentioned it on another thread because I have it on my amazon wishlist already. xP

I've just promoted your book up in the long to-read list.

you have been both very kind and very constructive. email me at groglogic@gmail.com and I'll ensure you always have free copies of all the books and audio episodes. (I did not see your email in your profile otherwise I would have sent this privately.)

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