Archive for October, 2008

Your Patch Has Been Rejected

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

Greetings! Your patch was unanimously rejected because:

[  ] Computers don't understand email instructions, they understand diff output
[  ] You sent ____ subsequent patches to apply on top of your original patch
[  ] What version did you diff against exactly?
[  ] Your patch is stupid
[  ] Your patch is poorly written
[  ] Your patch is unnecessary to those who know how to use the software
[  ] Using variable names such as "foo", "junk", and "crap" are ambiguous
[  ] Your patch is a philosophical patch, not a code patch
[  ] This patch is likely to break more than it fixes
[  ] I only have a finite amount of time on this earth

Also...

[  ] I don't have the same perverted directory structure as you
[  ] If you were planning on rewriting the whole stinking file, just send a new file for crying out loud
[  ] Would you care to explain what it is this patch is supposed to accomplish?
[  ] Your patch generates a dozen compiler errors, please test next time
[  ] Your patch would have been 10 lines if you knew what a subroutine was
[  ] The only "bug" is that you haven't read the docs
[  ] If I knew you had subscribed to the developer's list, I'd have better moderated it
[  ] I've been too busy giving you daily updates on the status of your patch to actually look at the patch

Furthermore, next time...

[  ] Use diff on the code, not the output
[  ] I won't make the mistake of trusting that you have a clue
[  ] Use relative paths, you freak
[  ] I wonder if you submitted this to the wrong project. WTF.
[  ] Perhaps you should hire a coder to write your submission
[  ] Don't use crayons to write your patch
[  ] Send this to some other project, it will be just as useful

Pawns in a Political Country

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

I remember hearing, first hand, from a gentleman whose uncle participated in an Alabama school program during the 1940s where he ingested radioactive cereal. The resulting health consequences were significant, as he later died from many forms of cancer. He seemed convinced it was a government conspiracy, and I read later of the same phenomenon in Waverly, Massachusetts – lawsuits directed at a local school for conducting experiments of radioactive iron on human subjects.

I like to think we’ve grown beyond such immoral horrors in the past fifty years, but the adage that history repeats itself should keep us diligent. Even the trivial of societal mistakes share a common root with the more egregious offenses: a lack of transparency in all forms of government. Many of us feel powerless about recent events in our country, not because we think they are entirely unjustified, but because they lack the transparency for anyone to understand what’s happening behind the curtain. Whether your peeve is entrusting an economic bailout plan to the same twits who broke the economy, or the abuse by our NSA’s wiretapping plan, most of what makes us feel powerless in society is that such plans come with little oversight. Transparency in government has no doubt been the catalyst to many great abuses in this country. When a government begins operating in secret, they’ve lost their credibility and trustworthiness.

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