4 Sep 2000 nomadamon   » (Apprentice)

way too much random noise in the headspace this weekend. On
Thursday I decided I'd try to fix a bug(?) in g++ that causes __builtin_*
functions to cause ambiguity at global scope, even when they were
declared/requested within a namespace. Bad Idea. Wasted a weekend.
I _think_ I see the general area(s) where the eventual fix will be, but
the 3 hour compiler compile has kept me from randomly editing the
compiler's source :) I gave the problem all of the spare cycles I had,
yet was unable to solve it (eek eek). Now, I must wait til next weekend
to fight it again. I _really hope_ someone produces a solution to the
problem so [1) I don't waste another weekend and [2) I can see how
the problem was solved for future bug hunting fun ;-)

On top of this, I had to make a decision to decline a job offer I
received on Friday. In fact, I think making this decision slowed
down the bug-hunting substantially -- damn distractions! I'm still
not comfortable in declining the job, since there would have been a
$10k salary increase in addition to 10k stock options, but there is
_no way_ I can leave my current employer (who would have a really
bad time if I left) on such short notice. This little dilema started me
thinking that the general shortage of skilled workers might make
an 'employee swap' for employers a very useful/profitable business.
Well, this is only useful if the employer and employee actually like
each other. I drink beer with my boss on occasion, and would hate
to lose a friend over a silly employment issue.

Oh yeah, I also decided to wipe out a well-aged debian system
and install debian 2.2. I'm gonna _try_ to _not_ un-debianize the
box this time. I spent two hours trying to figure out how to upgrade
a package the debian way when it would have take 15 minutes to
download the tarball and configure/make/make install, but I did
the debian thing :), and _hope_ to keep this system a debian system
instead of turning it into a Brent's Linux Non-Distro. This experience
reminded me how much simpler FreeBSD's ports system is to use.

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