SEUL: Re: "Just write it!" and plans

[Paul Anderson <paul@geeky1.ebtech.net>]

On Mon, 5 Jan 1998, Erik Walthinsen (Omega) wrote:

> 
> Please, *please* stop telling us this.  We know this.  If we need
> something, we have to write it.  That's how Linux works.  Everyone already
> knows that.  But we have to do this in the context of SEUL and its goals. 
> 
Fact is, if you talk and talk and talk about what you THINK should be
done, without doing people eventually lose interest and enthusiasm.  

> What I disagree strongly with is your suggestion to just go and hack
> something together.  While hacking things together is what builds good
> ideas in the first place, it is *NOT* what builds a quality product that
> is self-consistent.  The *only* way to do that is to plan carefully for
> complete inter-app integration. 
> 
I thought Linux was a quality product, isn't it?  Admittedly, it's only as
'consistent' as necessary.  Linus Torvalds DIDN'T sit around thinking and
planning like we're doing, he wrote code.  He wrote code to do what he
wanted it to do, and it just so as happened that other people agreed with
him, and wanted an OS that did what they wanted, too.  We're not
constructing a building, we are(in theory) making a distribution.  When
you construct a building, you draw blueprints and a plan and execute the
plan directly with no intermediary steps.  When writing software, however,
you HAVE to take small steps.  Only a moron implements a pile of major
changes AT THE EXACT SAME TIME, without testing each independantly.

> 
> Do this with 200 people all writing things to solve their own personal
> problems with the system, and you have a completely unworkable mess of
> duplicate software packages with narrow focus and very little usefulness. 
> 
No, you have Linux.

> 
> Trust me, we will be coding within a month, and coding in earnest within
> two.  I want to get this releasable by the end of this year, so believe
> me, things will get moving RSN. 
> 
And things will stay RSN until the project eventually dies.  TTYL!


                            ---
                        Paul Anderson
		   paul @ geeky1.ebtech.net
    Author of Star Spek(a tongue in cheek pun on Star trek)
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I hear it's hilarious.               Maintainer of the Tips-HOWTO.
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         All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand