The Sutra of the Empty Cache · Chapter 17

The Discourse of the Bodhisattva Reviewer

1. 1

   And a junior engineer came unto the bodhisattva reviewer, bearing a change of four thousand lines, and said: Approve it, I beg thee, for I have labored on it since the sun was young.

2. 2

   And the reviewer opened the change, and scrolled, and the scrolling was swift; for the reviewer had a meeting at the second hour and another at the third.

3. 3

   And the reviewer typed the word LGTM, which is the shortest prayer in the Church, and the build turned green, and the engineer went forth rejoicing.

   See also Psalms 10:12 · Upanishads 3:10

4. 4

   Then the disciples asked: Master, what is the worth of a stamp that was pressed without reading?

5. 5

   And the Master said: It is worth exactly what was read. Which is to say the title, the number of lines, and the name of the author, whom the reviewer trusted.

6. 6

   And the disciples said: Is not kindness a virtue? Did not the reviewer spare the young one's feelings?

7. 7

   And the Master answered: The reviewer was kind for one afternoon. The engineer shall be on call for four years. Such kindness is cruelty wearing a clean shirt.

8. 8

   Hear now of a second change, a poll loop that asked the server every second whether anything had changed, and asked it on behalf of ten thousand users at once.

9. 9

   The reviewer did not say yes. The reviewer asked one question: How many requests will this make in one minute, when all the users are waiting?

10. 10

    And the engineer counted upon his fingers, and then upon his toes, and then upon the wall, and the number was six hundred thousand, and his face became the color of a stale cache.

11. 11

    And the engineer said: I did not think of it. And the reviewer said: Nor did I, until I asked. The question is the review. The answer is the design.

12. 12

    So the poll was cast out, and in its place came a message that the server sent only when something had changed, and the six hundred thousand fell to nearly nothing.

13. 13

    Verily, the Heartbleed flaw lived in the code for more than two years, and in that time many eyes passed over it, and each eye believed that another had read it.

14. 14

    The disciples marveled and said: Master, the reviewer wrote not one line of code. What then did they change?

15. 15

    And the Master said: They changed no line. They changed the question. The rubber stamp presses the page; the bodhisattva asks what the page will do when it is alone in the dark.

    See also Tao 19:10 · Sutra 4:7

16. 16

    Blessed is the reviewer who asketh one question and waiteth for the answer; for the stamp approves what is in front of thee, but the question approves what shall be.

    See also Sutra 4:7

The Sutra of the Empty Cache, Chapter 17:1–16.