Why is it always a bus?
Buses are evil tools of the proprietary software corporations, this has been widely known for a while now.
What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
31–40 of 119 posts
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#32The early web was a pretty cringey place, although it is now too.
I think that it was more humorous and funny.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#33Real Story Here. A colleague and I developed a training course on the Foundations of DevOps. We started the course off with a discussion about risk in Software Delivery and IT in general. Attendees would often surface the "Key-Person Risk" or the "Hit by a Bus Risk" to which we would use as a teachable moment for pair programming, cross pollination, and measuring and improving the time it takes for new joins to becom…
I'm very sorry for your loss. I've heard "wins the lottery" as a less morbid metaphor for the same concept: one of your employees stops working in a low-probability event. Of course the higher-probability event is leaving their job (but somehow it's less polite to just say that); you usually get two weeks to hurriedly start documenting things, and with the current state of employee/employer relations you might easily…
A lottery number and a bus number are slightly different values. A lottery number you can still find the person and they may be enticed to help.
http://wiki.c2.com/?LotteryNumber vs http://wiki.c2.com/?TruckNumber
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm very sorry for your loss. I've heard "wins the lottery" as a less morbid metaphor for the same concept: one of your employees stops working in a low-probability event. Of course the higher-probability event is leaving their job (but somehow it's less polite to just say that); you usually get two weeks to hurriedly start documenting things, and with the current state of employee/employer relations you might easily…
As far as I can tell, "hits by a bus" is actually the euphemism. The highest probability way to lose an employee is just the employee quitting to work somewhere else. But you can't say that because it implies that your current workplace is suboptimal. Whereas "hits by a bus" is out of the control of your employer, so safe to say...
[deleted]
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#35I am bothered by the fact that Linus is made plural as "Linus Torvaldses" and not "Lini Torvalds".
I'm pretty sure he's not a Roman but a Finn.
(I'm also quite sure most languages today aren't Latin, namely English isn't. But what do I know, English speakers seem to have a different opinion.)
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#36> Our sample consisted of 200 Linus Torvaldses If there were 200 Linus Torvaldses then after one gets hit by a bus there would be 199 left. Even after the experiment there were at least 108.9 remaining. That should be plenty to keep Linux going. So what's the problem?
99 angry Torvalds sending email, 99 angry Torvalds
One falls down, a bus runs over his crown
98 angry Torvalds sending email, 98 angry Torvalds
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm very sorry for your loss. I've heard "wins the lottery" as a less morbid metaphor for the same concept: one of your employees stops working in a low-probability event. Of course the higher-probability event is leaving their job (but somehow it's less polite to just say that); you usually get two weeks to hurriedly start documenting things, and with the current state of employee/employer relations you might easily…
As far as I can tell, "hits by a bus" is actually the euphemism. The highest probability way to lose an employee is just the employee quitting to work somewhere else. But you can't say that because it implies that your current workplace is suboptimal. Whereas "hits by a bus" is out of the control of your employer, so safe to say...
It's hit by a bus because an employee leaving, or dieing of a prolonged illness leaves you time to plan for a departure or possibly ways to retrieve information from them after they are gone. Immediate unexpected death is a worst case, and "hit by a bus" neatly sidesteps a lot of questions such as whether there was someone with them, whether the other party in the accident was hurt, etc which can derail the point.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm very sorry for your loss. I've heard "wins the lottery" as a less morbid metaphor for the same concept: one of your employees stops working in a low-probability event. Of course the higher-probability event is leaving their job (but somehow it's less polite to just say that); you usually get two weeks to hurriedly start documenting things, and with the current state of employee/employer relations you might easily…
As far as I can tell, "hits by a bus" is actually the euphemism. The highest probability way to lose an employee is just the employee quitting to work somewhere else. But you can't say that because it implies that your current workplace is suboptimal. Whereas "hits by a bus" is out of the control of your employer, so safe to say...
Devs stay in one place like 15 months
Occassionally a 2 year stint just so some Gen X-er that reviews their resume’ doesnt consider them too noncommittal
No need to mince words about people leaving
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#39Might want to add '(2000)' to the title. I feel like Torvalds himself have been addressing aspects of this issue this year.
Read the text, it is not what you think
OP means appending ` (2000)` to the title as a year-published annotation, to disambiguate from current events. This is commonly done on HN.
Re: What If Linus Torvalds Gets Hit by a Bus? (2000)
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell, "hits by a bus" is actually the euphemism. The highest probability way to lose an employee is just the employee quitting to work somewhere else. But you can't say that because it implies that your current workplace is suboptimal. Whereas "hits by a bus" is out of the control of your employer, so safe to say...
Devs stay in one place like 15 months Occassionally a 2 year stint just so some Gen X-er that reviews their resume’ doesnt consider them too noncommittal No need to mince words about people leaving
I don't know if this is the norm outside of SV. I typically stay four years at a position and almost every interview I've had, people will comment about how short of a tenure that is.
It's definitely not unusual for developers to stay in roles for a decade or more. Especially very good ones.