The System360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That 3880

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Replying to this separately because it might be an interesting enough point not to get lost -- in some ways this seems like a trivial point, and in other ways I wonder whether it might be somehow deep ....

Yeah.

I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're talking about, but it seems related to what happens when I copy configuration files and scripts and stuff from one system to another (where the systems are more likely to be different releases-versions of the same operating system than very different systems). Some of those files and scripts have over the years accumulated significant, um, I think "cruft" might be the word -- workarounds for problems that have been fixed, or clumsy ways of doing things for which a better way now exists, and so forth. It would be nice to go through and clean all of that up, but who has time .... Well, maybe once or twice a year I'll get inspired and review one piece of the accumulated stuff, and often the result is something that works better or is less clumsy. But it does take time away from clearing the swamp, so to speak reference to famous remark about how it's hard to remember that you're meant to be clearing the swamp if there are too many alligators .

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-- B. L. Mbuttingill ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.