[MUD-Dev] From the linux-kernel list

[Jeff Cole]

Thought this was *philosophically* interesting.

I think that there are some concepts implied that are applicable to
MMO* development.

["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." is a particular highlight.]

Jeff Cole

---------------------------------------

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds at transmeta.com>
...
Subject: Re: Coding style - a non-issue

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Rik van Riel wrote:

> I'm very interested too, though I'll have to agree with Larry that
> Linux really isn't going anywhere in particular and seems to be
> making progress through sheer luck.

Hey, that's not a bug, that's a FEATURE!

You know what the most complex piece of engineering known to man in
the whole solar system is?

Guess what - it's not Linux, it's not Solaris, and it's not your
car.

It's you. And me.

And think about how you and me actually came about - not through any
complex design.

Right. "sheer luck".

Well, sheer luck, AND:

 - free availability and _crosspollination_ through sharing of
 "source code", although biologists call it DNA.
 - a rather unforgiving user environment, that happily replaces bad
 versions of us with better working versions and thus culls the herd
 (biologists often call this "survival of the fittest")
 - massive undirected parallel development ("trial and error")

I'm deadly serious: we humans have _never_ been able to replicate
something more complicated than what we ourselves are, yet natural
selection did it without even thinking.

Don't underestimate the power of survival of the fittest.

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.

Quite frankly, Sun is doomed. And it has nothing to do with their
engineering practices or their coding style.

Linus


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