Yet, the unaccustomed SODA delay, whereby the October column may not reach you until the last week in September, does demand an apology and explanation. A rare, uplifting reunion with old UNIX and CS colleagues such as Steve Bourne, Bob Toxen, and George Ledin, and folk-song pals such as Shay Black and Riggy Rackin, that left me nackered for days. To the traditional hazards of sleet and snow, unchained dogs and unnumbered houses, randy homemakers and Canadian Zip Codes, we must now add the thousand natural glitches that bedevil our electronic mail, a la modem de chez nous. This, of course, explains why you get so much junk - the good stuff is going to someone else . The Uncertainty Principle applies with greater frustration at the micro level.
Programmers meet it daily when they try to pass parameters from one module to another.
I often wonder why so many people waste their time meddling with the immutable. More Latin and less Logo in the schools, I say. The above-mentioned fundamental communicative flaws have not, happily, prevented my vast readership from trying to reach me with questions, comments and encouraging remarks. From the few garbled letters which have arrived I can extrapolate confidently, and apologize to the thousands who must be waiting in vain for my response. What you are missing is FORMn.