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I hope this isn't seen as too much fluff for the forum but I was in a situation earlier, not related to computers, where I found myself telling a story I remember reading years ago and I can't seem to find the source of it anymore. It took the form of a zen master/student story and went something like this:
Quote:
Once there was a student writing out code from a print out, he spent a lot of care and attention on this task and when he was finally finished he attempted to compile it but it failed. The next day he tried again and again failed. On the third day he spoke to the master who looked at the print out and said the code is correct, he sat down and typed it out and the program compiled. The student was astonished and said that he wrote the code exactly how it was written and exactly how the master typed it. The master nodded and said "Yes but the difference is I knew what the code was doing". Upon hearing this the student was enlightened
There was a similar story I remember:
Quote:
One day the student was playing with a hand held computer game, after some time he went to the master and said "This game has two modes and I have mastered all the levels, 'Player vs computer and player vs player' there is nothing left for me to do with this. The master looked thoughtful and took the game then smashed it hard against the table. He handed the pieces back saying "You are wrong, there are 3 modes. Fix it". Upon hearing this the student was enlightened.
I did a google search and Eric Raymond had some but they were not the stories I had read. I suspect they were from usenet days, I have never used it so I personally didn't come across them there. I am sorry if this isn't slackware related but I thought there may be people here who know the source
Last edited by pm_a_cup_of_tea; 05-31-2022 at 12:55 PM.
The koans compiled by ESR are the Rootless Root and feature Master Foo.
What you wrote sounded a bit like something from the the Codeless Code, which are more programming oriented (like your quotes), but are longer (not in the form of your quotes), so it's probably not that.
A master programmer passed a novice programmer one day. The master noted the novice's preoccupation with a hand-held computer game. ``Excuse me,'' he said, ``may I examine it?''
The novice bolted to attention and handed the device to the master. ``I see that the device claims to have three levels of play: Easy, Medium, and Hard,'' said the master. ``Yet every such device has another level of play, where the device seeks not to conquer the human, nor to be conquered by the human.''
``Pray, great master,'' implored the novice, ``how does one find this mysterious setting?''
The master dropped the device to the ground and crushed it underfoot. And suddenly the novice was enlightened.
There is also:
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Tao of Programming; 4.2
A novice asked the master: ``I have a program that sometime runs and sometimes aborts. I have followed the rules of programming, yet I am totally baffled. What is the reason for this?''
The master replied: ``You are confused because you do not understand Tao. Only a fool expects rational behavior from his fellow humans. Why do you expect it from a machine that humans have constructed? Computers simulate determinism; only Tao is perfect.
``The rules of programming are transitory; only Tao is eternal. Therefore you must contemplate Tao before you receive enlightenment.''
``But how will I know when I have received enlightenment?'' asked the novice.
``Your program will then run correctly,'' replied the master.
Also compiled by ESR, the AI Koans. The first one has the same theme as your story although the form is a bit different:
Quote:
In reading these, it is at least useful to know that [...] Tom Knight was one of the Lisp machine's principal designers [...]
Tom Knight and the Lisp Machine
A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power off and on.
Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: “You cannot fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is going wrong.”
On my very-second job, still at the University from which I had just graduated, the "IBM 4381" that wasn't supposed to have won the engineering department's bid suddenly ground to a halt and spit out an inexplicable error code that I had never seen before nor since.
I dutifully called IBM Support, and they suggested, "well, what would happen if you just turn it off, waited five seconds, and then turn it back on again?" And that was the end of that! It never happened again.
(This was the only computer that I have ever seen which actually had a pair of "start/stop" keys, right there on the operator's console keyboard, that actually seemed to work. As though it were some kind of tabulating machine.)
Last edited by sundialsvcs; 06-01-2022 at 02:29 PM.
I really enjoy reading Eric Raymond's Rootless Root koans every once in a while. I actually studied Zen for a while and enjoy koans of all types, but the ones about UNIX are great.
My apologies for the late reply, I've been very busy over the past couple of days.
That is amazing, thank you so much. I have a literature background so I'm fascinated with cultural stories and how they originate. Over the past few years I tried to track them down but clearly wasn't using the word 'koan'. Also it seems I may have changed them slightly, or maybe the ones that I had read back then were influenced from these... so stories go... anyway thank you for your very thorough answer
Last edited by pm_a_cup_of_tea; 06-04-2022 at 10:58 AM.
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And that was the end of that! It never happened again.
