The Dark Cockpit Theory

A co-worker who is annoyed with the verbosity of our verilog simulations just asked me if I subscribed to the Dark Cockpit Theory. I immediately replied, "no." I've had this argument a number of times with other engineers and I have already decided that more information is better than less. I had to google "dark cockpit theory" later because I'd never heard of it referred to that. For me it has always been the UNIX "Rule of Silence". Same idea, I think.

Just to be clear, I do like the Rule of Silence when it's software that I trust isn't going to do weird things or silently hang. There isn't a lot of code that I trust that much, though, and if it's software I don't trust, I want to know what it's doing, or at least that it's doing something.

As I thought about this more, it's the same with people. When a person you trust is doing something for you, they can go do it without giving you any intermediate status reports. That's easier and more efficient for both of you. When someone you don't trust is working for you, you want to hear from them often, so you know they are staying on task and doing things right. Right?

The big argument about overly noisy simulations or software is that you can't find the important messages in all the noise. I just don't understand this argument when it's coming from fellow software engineers. Especially UNIX/Linux users. We read obtuse source code all day long, and we confidently use tools like grep or the search features of vim or emacs to help us. These same tools can search through program output. UNIX shells have built-in ways to redirect program output to files if you don't want to watch it all scroll by. If you really don't like it send it to /dev/null! Use the tools of the trade. Usually what people are complaining about is that the message they want to see isn't the only one being printed. Tough! You are a UNIX user, pipe the output through grep. Take 20 minutes and write a script to filter the output if you need. You write code for a living, you know how to do these things.

Comments

Texatril said…
I think the default should be silent, but most programs provide a -v flag that outputs all the info you are looking for
June 14, 2011 at 7:39 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

SystemVerilog Fork Disable "Gotchas"

This is a long post with a lot of SystemVerilog code. The purpose of this entry is to hopefully save you from beating your head against the wall trying to figure out some of the subtleties of SystemVerilog processes (basically, threads). Subtleties like these are commonly referred to in the industry as "Gotchas" which makes them sound so playful and fun, but they really aren't either. I encourage you to run these examples with your simulator (if you have access to one) so that a) you can see the results first hand and better internalize what's going on, and b) you can tell me in the comments if this code works fine for you and I'll know I should go complain to my simulator vendor. OK, I'll start with a warm-up that everyone who writes any Verilog or SystemVerilog at all should be aware of, tasks are static by default. If you do this: module top; task do_stuff ( int wait_time); #wait_time $display ( "waited %0d, then did stuff" , wa
Read more

'git revert' Is Not Equivalent To 'svn revert'

I just learned that if you have some changes in your working tree that you want to get rid of, you don't type 'git revert' like you might guess. No, that's what cvs, subversion, mercurial, and bazaar (to name a few) use revert to mean, but not git. With git, revert is used to undo actual commits. Thankfully, you can undo your revert with another 'git revert', I just learned. So let me repeat to be clear, if you have changes to your working files that you want to abandon, DO NOT do this: git revert HEAD That will undo your last commit. Do this instead: git reset --hard HEAD I'm glad I have that straightened out now. I'm wondering if /etc was really a good place for me to start out playing with git. UPDATE: Nearly two years later and I'm still getting comments on this. I'm glad I've been able to help people out this way. The discussion in the comments is good, and one thing I'd like to point out is that I now always use
Read more

Git Rebase Explained

Image
Introduction Rebase is a helpful git command that can be used to turn a branchy two-headed version history into an easy to follow linear one. A linear history is much easier for a human eye to follow and a human brain to understand. Rebase is a very safe command to use, despite some fear that people have about it. This post should explain how rebase works and clear up any misunderstandings about it. Rebase Basics The short summary of rebase is that it cuts commits out of the git history and reconnects them somewhere else. Let's say the common scenario comes up: you commit a change to the main branch of a repository, you then run  git fetch , and in come a couple changes that other people made on the main branch. If your commit is version 46f and the others that just came in on the fetch are versions ef9 and 4a2, your version history might look like this: The main branch now has two heads, 46f and 4a2. You can run  git rebase  to disconnect your commit from version d88 and connect i
Read more