8 Nov
2010
8 Nov
'10
10:56 a.m.
It was thus said that the Great Roger Holmes once stated:
On 7 Nov 2010, at 18:00, cctalk-request at classiccmp.org wrote:
Except that I am in the wrong country for this.
Do you _really_ want me to try it?
Definitely not, for one thing you would not be able to report back the
result of the test if successful, only if it failed.
A bit like testing the I/O instruction that a torpedo's processor issues
to explode its charge, and the code it executes afterwards. The Q.A.
department of course would insist that the absence of a detonator and
charge might affect the result of the test so must be connected up.
Back in college, I was working on a personal project [1] and I got stuck
when a problem in handing error conditions [2]. So I popped into one of my
professor's office, described the error condition I was trying to handle,
and he said, with all seriousness [3], "If you don't know how to handle the
error, don't check for the condition."
In retrospect, I think he was on to something ...
-spc (Then there's one of my favorite quotes: The death of God left the
angels in a strange position.)
[1] A BBS door game. Never did get it finished. I've forgotten which
BBS software it was for, but I do know it ran under MS-DOS.
[2] Since it was a BBS door, writing the error message to the screen was
no good as it would probably never be seen. Writing to the disk was
find, but what if the disk filled up? Okay, as a last resort, dump
the message to the printer. But if the printer was off line ...
[3] He was a former IBMer, so of course he meant business.
> Oh, go ahead... But I beleive that cucifixion has
never been used as a
>> suicide method.
> No. I've tried it dozens of times; there's just no way you can hammer in
> the last nail.
On Fri, 5 Nov 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
I have this image of 4 of those butane-powered
nailers used by builders
suitably arranged nad with a remote triggger facility. You get your arms
and legs in the right places, somehow press the switch and bang...
You might be able to get away with one of the Sears "Nextec" cordless
electric hammers. No I am
NOT thinking of trying this.
So, the technique remains untested.