Inverse Binary Rock-Suck Entanglement (the "no good Perl jobs"/"text editors" myth)

[Andy Wardley]

Jonathan Stowe wrote:
 > Yeah for the same reason I would ask "vi or emacs?", but non-commital
 > here was also a valid answer.  "Whuh?" generally isn't.

The Emacs/Vi thing is one of those bizarre examples of "Inverse Binary
Rock-Suck Entanglement". In a background independant frame of reference,
they co-exist in a state of text editor superposition until a user
observes a slight preference for one or the other. At this point the
waveform collapses and the editor with the positive bias instantly
rocks, while the other one sucks big time. There is no middle ground.

On a similar note, one of the best questions I was asked in an interview
was "What do you think of Microsoft?"

It's the kind of question that invites a rant. That's good if it
demonstrates that the candidate understands the issues and cares
passionately about them enough to form strong opinions. But it's also
particularly good at identifying those people who can see both sides of
an argument (even if they fall firmly on one side of the fence).

Good employees are prepared to make/accept decisions for the benefit of
the business even if they go against their own personal preferences. Of
course, you shouldn't be going to work in a Microsoft shop if the
thought of it makes you retch. But just because you're going to work in
a Perl/Open Source company, doesn't mean that you won't have to support
your Perl modules on Win32 to keep your customers happy.

So in summary, there's nothing wrong with making your mind up about
something, as long as it's not accompanied by the dull, hollow sound
of a mind closing.

Personal preference rocks!
Inverse Binary Rock-Suck Entanglement sucks!


A