nerd gloat

[DaveS]

I just got back from the USENIX Annual Technical Conference in Boston, where I got to meet Andrew Tanenbaum *and* David Patterson.

Anyone geeky enough to be jealous?

[kirkroy]

Sorry, I'm not geeky enough to be jealous (I used to do some solaris admin work and have recently gotten back to it by loading linux to play around with on a couple machines at home, dang I've forgotten a lot). However, it did remind me of a funny story from a previous usenix conf:

"Question 5) True Story?
Was the story about you embarrassing a Microsoftie at a conference true? Specifically, that he was insisting that their implementation of ksh in their unix compatibility kit was true to the "real" thing and trying to argue the point with you. The argument ended when someone else finally stood up and informed the speaker who he was arguing with.

Just curious ...

Korn: This story is true. It was at a USENIX Windows NT conference and Microsoft was presenting their future directions for NT. One of their speakers said that they would release a UNIX integration package for NT that would contain the Korn Shell.

I knew that Microsoft had licensed a number of tools from MKS so I came to the microphone to tell the speaker that this was not the "real" Korn Shell and that MKS was not even compatible with ksh88. I had no intention of embarrassing him and thought that he would explain the compromises that Microsoft had to make in choosing MKS Korn Shell. Instead, he insisted that I was wrong and that Microsoft had indeed chosen a "real" Korn Shell. After a couple of exchanges, I shut up and let him dig himself in deeper. Finally someone in the audience stood up and told him what almost everyone in the audience knew, that I had written the 'real' Korn Shell. I think that this is symbolic about the way the company works."

[cgallery]

I'm impressed.

I'd like to have lunch with Donald Knuth.

[LinuxRandal]

I just got back from the USENIX Annual Technical Conference in Boston, where I got to meet Andrew Tanenbaum

Andrew Tanenbaum? Half of the part that is wrong about Linux being a direct copy of Minux and Unix, according to SCO?

Some people may not understand THAT joke.

[smorris]

I used to go to the USENIX conferences but for the last several years I only go to SANS.