Warning: Tasteless geek humor

[unixronin]

Seen on a mailing list:

> > Hans Reiser was arrested for murdering his wife.

> >

> > You never see Fred Ufs or Bob Ext Jr. charged with murder.

>

> That's because they don't keep journals of their murders.

Comments

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

i guess i'm not geeky enough, i don't get it! does that mean i have to unfriend you now?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Hans Reiser is the author and principal inventor of reiserfs, a journaling filesystem popular on Linux.

In filesystem terms, "journaling" means that before the filesystem keeps a journal of actions performed on the disk, and before it does anything on the disk, it first writes a journal entry detailing what it's about to do, then does it, then marks the transaction as completed. (Old entries are flushed from the journal or overwritten after a certain period of time.) If, at any point during the process, disk operation is interrupted -- say, by a power failure -- the system can return the filesystem to a consistent state when it comes back up, by reading the journal and "rolling back" any transactions not marked as completed.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

that sounds good to me! thanks for the lesson.