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Date: Sun, 02 Dec 2001 17:25:54 +0100
From: Martin Dalecki <dalecki@evision-ventures.com>
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To: Rik van Riel <riel@conectiva.com.br>
CC: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>, Andrew Morton <akpm@zip.com.au>,
        Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>,
        Daniel Phillips <phillips@bonn-fries.net>,
        Henning Schmiedehausen <hps@intermeta.de>,
        Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Coding style - a non-issue
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.33L.0112010914430.4079-100000@imladris.surriel.com>
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Rik van Riel wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> > 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.
> 
> So, are we going to take out the appendix in 2.5 or will
> we continue hoping our kernel doesn't catch an illness
> without actually doing anything preventive ?
> 
> Biological selection does nothing except removing the weak
> ones, it cannot automatically create systems which work well.
> 
> In short, I believe the biological selection is just that,
> selection. The creation of stuff will need some direction.
> 
> regards,

One thing Linus doesn't realize is that the most successfull
results of the biological selection are not the high mamals but
simle archaic bacterias. This is the point where his
analogy breaks badly.

One one thing he simple appears to have forgotten: Operating 
systems have a *purpose*. Therefore the stuff one wan't to do with
a system is what is driving it's true developement - this is most
pertinent in the developement of a driver - one does it to
use some kind of hardware it's that simple.

However I agree with him fully that most of the so called 
software engineering methods do not have much in common with
the reality out there and are basically a self exercise.
-
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