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Cake day: August 21st, 2024

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  • my take on the social media thing is that it basically amounts to creating an outside context problem. gathering the opinions of us plebs doesn’t really matter because the kernel isn’t developed by the masses, no matter what ESR thinks. the project is headed by Linus (and his “generals”) and what they say goes. so riling up a bunch of nobodies that aren’t fully aware of all the requirements there are on the kernel will amount to brigading no matter how well-meaning the mob is.

    the LKML exists and is public specifically because they don’t want to deal with fielding questions from people on social media. they want to field questions from people who care enough to read it.

    actually, they did try using social media for a while. unfortunately they chose google plus.




  • it’s more niche than C, has less competency available, works very differently to C, and requires a whole new toolchain to be added to the already massive kernel compilation process. for it to be plain sailing adding it to the kernel some of the worlds’ foremost domain experts on operating systems would have to re-learn basically everything.

    also since rust is just coming up on 15 years of existence without a 1.0 release, there’s no way to ensure that the code written today will be considered well-formed by the time 1.0 hits.









  • i read The Black Magician series by Trudi Canavan back when they came out, and they may be a bit weird of a recommendation in that the magic there very much is “slam fireball into face” but there’s a heavy focus on the process itself. Canavan writes mage battles like WWI gruesome trench warfare, with battle lines of wizards lobbing fireballs at each other for hours until their shields break, and supply lines running up to the front with mana supplies. it’s an interesting take on the genre.

    also, the Discworld books very much have magic as its own entity with its own will as a central theme.