guru experience

[Ben Pfaff]

I feel like a real badass hacker at the moment.  See, last night
I was running javac[0] on a fairly new kernel (2.2.17pre6), and
it bombed out with a error message, something like "/proc/01234:
mmap failed: no such file or directory".  At this point I realize
that the new kernel must be screwing stuff up somehow and drop
back to an older one (2.2.9).

This afternoon I decide I really need that new kernel, because
the old one didn't have support for my ethercard compiled in, so
I figure it's time to fix the new kernel.

And I run a diff between fs/proc in the two different versions.
And the change that broke javac sticks out like a broken thumb.
And I fix it.  And it's recompiling now, and javac is going to
work again.

I'm sure that this particular change would have obvious to
countless other people, but it felt really good to see it for
myself, especially seeing that I am *not* a kernel hacker.

I think I'm getting pretty good at this sort of thing :-)

[0] *sigh*  javac sucks[1], but at least it implements the full Java
1.1 language and works with the JDK out of the box.  No other
Java compiler I have does both of those.  Maybe if I had to use
Java more I'd switch to another compiler.

[1] non-free, horribly slow, bad error messages.

-- 
"In some social circles, so I'm told, you don't start
 conversations with complete strangers by saying "God damn those fucking
 lusers!" and launching into a long tirade."
--ptomblin in a.s.r