From owner-freebsd-arch Mon Jul 17 11: 5:42 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from blackhelicopters.org (geburah.blackhelicopters.org [209.69.178.18]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC46F37BF27 for ; Mon, 17 Jul 2000 11:05:31 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mwlucas@blackhelicopters.org) Received: (from mwlucas@localhost) by blackhelicopters.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA05517; Mon, 17 Jul 2000 14:05:16 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from mwlucas) From: Michael Lucas Message-Id: <200007171805.OAA05517@blackhelicopters.org> Subject: Bikesheds In-Reply-To: <20000717183918.A26484@cichlids.cichlids.com> from Alexander Langer at "Jul 17, 2000 6:39:18 pm" To: alex@big.endian.de (Alexander Langer) Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 14:05:16 -0400 (EDT) Cc: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > What is this thing with the bikesheds??? > > It appears on every place I am, on IRC, now here. > > As a non-native English-speaker, I'd like to know what's up with the > poor bikesheds. The poor ones :-( Actually, I believe it's a FreeBSDism. You see, when it comes to the advanced topics such as how to redesign the VM subsystem or how to implement DEVFS, there are only a few people who can competently comment. They reach a consensus amongst themselves, and work proceeds apace. When it comes to more basic, general topics, more people can comment. Any competent coder could write code for function X, so every competent coder on the list feels obliged to make comments about function X. Similarly, almost everyone also feels competent to describe the weaknesses in other approaches. The discussion drags, and drags, and drags. It's like construction work. Very few people can build a skyscraper, but anyone can build a bike shed. When someone mentions "painting the bikeshed" it means "we've argued about this long enough, most of the solutions are just fine, will you please just implement one and SHUT UP?" (subject changed so hopefully the search engines will pick it up) ==ml To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message