During the last few years, while the rest of the tech world has been plodding on in its traditional, uninspiring, way, Linux has been evolving some very interesting and powerful features. The networking stack, in particular, has been transformed into something completely different, and yet many of us old farts haven’t noticed, sticking as we do to the traditional net-tools (`ifconfig` and friends), `iptables`, and never really trying to do anything beyond getting things done. …

If there’s one thing that developers like to do, in 2020 at least, it’s talking about developing. It sometimes seems that they would rather spend their time discussing code than actually writing it, even just to see if it works. And I’m not referring to design here, just the practice of talking about the “craft” of code. Design patterns are what they get excited about. Ways of conveying the same idea in some nebulous form that is considered “correct” or, God help us all, “clean”. They’re not talking about making it provably correct, or anything quite so useful. …

Over the years I’ve tried to put into words my frustration, incredulity, and skepticism about “Agile” (note the capital “A”) in a way that someone outside of the tech industry could understand. It’s been such a core part of the way things are done for so long, we insiders find it difficult to see how ridiculous the rituals, jargon, and ceremonies appear when observed from the outside. My first experience working in an environment where the Agile lifestyle had been embraced so fully that it felt cultish, led me to try and document how comically ludicrous it was. But, as…

Yeah you’ve got your zsh, and your FISH, and you feel pretty powerful. Well only the most professional artisan code-crafters deserve the level of power that comes with the hottest new shell…

Behold! Anguish!

There’s a reason why it’s called “cross-compiling": you have to spend a lot of time being cross while you’re compiling.

If there are people out there who have to cross-compile on a daily basis and have enough skill and experience not to lose their cool, then please share some wisdom with us! Especially if you regularly cross compile to MIPS.

One of the biggest problems I personally encounter is that generally it involves targeting some ratchet-ass ancient SDK on cack old hardware. Trying to get recent code to compile is like trying to put a jet engine in a Reliant…

It has always frustrated older people when the next generation thinks they’ve discovered something new, because it’s invariably something that has been around forever. Sex is the classic example: no matter how naughty, new, or wild you think you’re being, humanity and the species that predated us have been doing it before. As Bill Hicks observed: look at your family tree and remember that every time the line splits, there’s fucking. And if you ever had any suspicion that Internet porn was responsible for inventing some of the extraordinary perversions that have now become commonplace, just see if you can…

There was a time when computers were rare, and only used by nerds, rich people, and mathematicians. Now I sit in a pub, drinking a pint of beer, listening to the sound of live folk music, and observing people from 21 to 90 each using a pocket-sized device with more computing power than the sum total of technology in the 1980’s.

For someone who fell squarely into the “nerd" camp of the first sentence, it sometimes seems baffling. Firstly because this incredible technology is now as quotidian as spoons or shoes. …