12 lines
1.1 KiB
Plaintext
12 lines
1.1 KiB
Plaintext
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Master Foo and the Hardware Designer
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<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><span id="more-6195"></span></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>
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<p>The hardware designer said: “It is rumored that you are a great programmer. How many lines of code do you write per year?”</p>
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<p>Master Foo replied with a question: “How many square inches of silicon do you lay out per year?”</p>
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<p>“Why…we hardware designers never measure our work in that way,” the man said.</p>
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<p>“And why not?” Master Foo inquired.</p>
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<p>“If we did so,” the hardware designer replied, “we would be tempted to design chips so large that they cannot be fabricated – and, if they were fabricated, their overwhelming complexity would make it be impossible to generate proper test vectors for them.”</p>
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<p>Master Foo smiled, and bowed to the hardware designer.</p>
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<p>In that moment, the hardware designer achieved enlightenment.</p>
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