Master Foo and the Hardware Designer
<p>The newest addition to <a href="http://catb.org/esr/writings/unix-koans/index.html">Rootless Root</a>:</p>
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<p>On one occasion, as Master Foo was traveling to a conference with a few of his senior disciples, he was accosted by a hardware designer.</p>
<p>The hardware designer said: &#8220;It is rumored that you are a great programmer. How many lines of code do you write per year?&#8221;</p>
<p>Master Foo replied with a question: &#8220;How many square inches of silicon  do you lay out per year?&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Why&#8230;we hardware designers never measure our work in that way,&#8221; the man said.</p>
<p>&#8220;And why not?&#8221; Master Foo inquired.</p>
<p>&#8220;If we did so,&#8221; the hardware designer replied, &#8220;we would be tempted to design chips so large that they cannot be fabricated &#8211; and, if they were fabricated, their overwhelming complexity would make it be impossible to generate proper test vectors for them.&#8221;</p>
<p>Master Foo smiled, and bowed to the hardware designer.</p>
<p>In that moment, the hardware designer achieved enlightenment.</p>
