On Wed, 3 Apr 2013, Charles Haynes wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 12:40 PM, SS <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, 2013-04-03 at 00:31 +0200, Tomasz Rola wrote:
> > > ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. **
> > > ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home **
> > > ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... **
> >
> > For me, Deepa and other non techies, the meaning of the above 3 lines
> > are told in soap opera format in the link below, which I can understand
> >
> > http://justpasha.org/folk/rm.html
> >
> >
> Close Shiv, but there's a subtlety that is what makes the joke even
> funnier. The difference is that between "rm -rf" (your link) and "rm -rif"
> (Tomasz' quote.) When you add "-i" to "rm" it normally asks you to confirm
> each deletion with "Yes" or "No." However when you do both "-i" AND "-f" it
> no longer asks, it just does it. Some people, being cautious, habitually
> add "-i" to "rm" (and particularly "rm -r") in a misguided attempt to make
> sure they don't accidentally delete something important, but eventually end
> up automatically saying "yes" every time they do an "rm."
>
> In Buddhism, "does <x> have Buddha nature" is canonically answered "yes"
> for all values of living things <x>. However one of the most famous Zen
> koans is "Joshu's Dog" - aka "Does a dog have buddha nature?" It's the very
> first koan in the seminal Zen work "The Gateless Barrier." Joshu's answer
> is "mu." Which means literally "nothing" or "nothingness" but figuratively
> can mean approximately "your question is poorly formed" or "your question
> contains an implicit assumption that is false" or even "your question does
> not make sense." So why does Joshu say "mu?"
>
> Popularly the formulation "does <x> have buddha nature" has been used to
> form pseudo-zen koans with clever (rather than profound) answers. This is
> one of those cases, but a bit more profound than most.
>
> -- Charles
Wow. I am impressed :-).
For the record, I believe there was at least one rm implementation which
would have asked a question ("-i") but instead of waiting for answer,
removed a node just after asking ("-f"). Strangely, I cannot tell if I
ever used that particular "rm" or not.
Regards,
Tomasz Rola
--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... **
** **
** Tomasz Rola mailto:[email protected] **
