How do you tell a wizard?

Doug Gwyn gwyn at smoke.BRL.MIL
Sat Oct 14 16:00:10 AEST 1989


I think one way to spot wizards if you aren't one is to pose some
practical problems for them to solve and see what they come up with.

Examples:
	Need to control access to "public" resources such as magtape
	to prevent users getting in each others' way.

	Need to locate source for X Windows.

	Need guaranteed real-time response for certain processes.

If you basically understand UNIX and Kernighan&Pike's book, you should
be able to evaluate proposed solutions for
	correctness
	completeness
	implementability
	elegance
Not every true "wizard" will perform perfectly on all such problems,
but anyone who can't come up with reasonable responses to ANY of them
is clearly not a wizard.



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