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<p>I'm
now the de-facto anthology/collection editor of <i>The "Not
Invented Here" Chronicles,</i> in ACM Queue.</p>
<p>It’s about all the times when something brilliant fell out of
use because someone (or their employer) was unwilling to look and
see
if it was already done. It “wasn’t invented here.”</p>
<p> So I’m looking for stories about stuff where a technique was
rejected, or just fell out of use due to carelessness. </p>
<p>The stupidest case I know of is extended versioning for
controlled
change. It was invented in Multics(!), reinvented in Solaris, and
re-re-invented in glibc. It’s described in Paul Stachour’s CACM
article[1], as a superset of the kind of ordinary versioning <i>everyone</i>
does.</p>
<p>I start the series with “The Hardest Way is the Easiest”[2], a
story about getting full-path test coverage without infinite
labor.</p>
<p>So what have you run into that didn’t get enough respect, and
could be usefully reincarnated? </p>
<p>As with Paul, I’ll play editor or co-author, if you’re shy at
submitting articles to the ACM. Heck, brain-dump on me on the
phone
and I’ll be your secretary (:-))</p>
<p>--dave</p>
<p>[1 <a
href="https://queue.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1626135.1640399"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://queue.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1626135.1640399</a>
]</p>
<p>[2 A draft is at codeberg, <a
href="https://codeberg.org/davecb/NIH/src/branch/main/Exhaustion/Exhaustion.pdf"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://codeberg.org/davecb/NIH/src/branch/main/Exhaustion/Exhaustion.pdf</a>
]</p>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Collier-Brown, | Always do right. This will gratify
System Programmer and Author | some people and astonish the rest
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:davecb@spamcop.net">davecb@spamcop.net</a> | -- Mark Twain</pre>
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