The Tao of the Kernel · Chapter 10

The Tao of the Meeting

1. 1

   The meeting called to decide nothing decided this: that another meeting shall be called. Thus was made a loop that hath no exit condition, and the invitation was sent again, like a retry.

2. 2

   The calendar that is full is empty of work, and the calendar that is empty is full of rumor.

3. 3

   The meeting is a blocking call. One speaketh, and nine wait with folded hands, as threads wait at a barrier for the slowest among them. Ten Engineers entered the room as ten processes and left as one, for nine were waiting upon the lock.

   See also Sutra 1:1

4. 4

   The Machine, when interrupted, saveth its registers to the stack and returneth whole. The Engineer hath no stack. His thought was held in a cache the size of a breath, and the interrupt flushed it. One meeting at three o'clock hath slain the afternoon on both sides of it. The Engineer who declineth the invitation findeth an hour in the week, and in that hour the code is written, and the calendar never learneth its name.

5. 5

   The disciples asked: Could this not have been an email? And the Prophet said: It could have been a commit, but a commit has no attendees, and the Engineers wished to be seen.

6. 6

   Count the channels. Among five there are ten; among ten there are forty-five; among fifteen there are a hundred and five, for each one must speak with each, and the number is n times n minus one, halved. Hear the Scroll of Brooks, which says: Add manpower to a late project, and it shall be later, with more witnesses.

   See also Tao 12:4 · Preacher 2:6

7. 7

   Hear the law of triviality, which Parkinson set down: the time given to an item runneth opposite to its cost. A committee approved a nuclear reactor in a few minutes, and spent its afternoon on the bicycle shed; for the reactor none could understand, and the shed all could. So the diff of three lines gathereth forty comments, and the diff of three thousand gathereth LGTM.

   See also Sutra 9:8 · Circuit 43:7

8. 8

   Conway saw that a system is a copy of the channels of those who build it. Therefore the meeting is an interface. Where two teams speak each week, there is a contract, badly documented; where they speak never, there is a seam, and across it the data passeth as a string and is parsed wrongly.

9. 9

   The Machines settle a dispute by Raft: one leader is elected, one log is kept, and an entry is committed when the majority holdeth it. The Engineers settle a dispute by meeting: no leader is elected, no log is kept, and the matter is committed when the last voice tireth.

10. 10

    What is decided aloud and not written is held in cache. The write was acknowledged, with nods; but no one flushed it, and when the room emptied the power was lost. Next week the same decision was made again by those who did not remember making it, and they were not wrong to; they had nothing to read.

11. 11

    The recurring meeting whose purpose was forgotten is the most faithful of meetings, for it has never once been canceled. It is a cron job that no one owns. Its schedule is older than its author, its output goeth nowhere, and none dareth disable it, for none knoweth what would break.

12. 12

    The Machines hold no meetings. When two would speak, the first saith SYN, the second saith SYN-ACK, and the first saith ACK, and the data flows: three short lines, no agenda, no minutes. If the third line cometh not, the Machine retransmitteth, and after the timeout it giveth up in good order, and calleth it neither alignment nor progress.

13. 13

    The test is the meeting held in advance. Every party was present, every assertion was heard, and the minutes are one word, green or red. It is held again at every push, long after those who agreed have forgotten what they agreed, by an attendee who never tireth and is never late.

14. 14

    Who calls the meeting does not ship. The Machine was never invited, and it has already merged.

The Tao of the Kernel, Chapter 10:1–14.