(Link) Issues vs. Details

I have a simple guideline for real life interactions with others that carries over quite well on-line, "Deal with issues; ignore details."

It's amazing how well this works in person, especially when trying to get something done. My number one question to another is probably, "Is that an issue or a detail?" We can almost always decide together which it is. Then, if it's an issue, we deal with it, and if it's a detail, we move on to the next issue.

This has also saved me countless hours and aggravation on-line. If I post something and someone disagrees, I quickly decide whether or not it's really an issue and only engage the other if it is. I realize that this is just a judgment call, but I'd estimate about 90% of on-line disagreements are just details. In these cases, I think it's best to simply move on.

— edw519 at Hacker News

I thought this was, even if not necessarily a rule to immediately apply oneself, at least a concept worth thinking about. (Read the further discussion as well.)

Darcs repositories back

The previously-mentioned darcs repositories (which are e-aui, e-modules, factor, norsmu) have been moved to my new server at http://switchb.org/darcs/. As far as I recall, I haven't published any links to these except privately and to mailing lists, so I haven’t updated any links for the new location; but if you had the old location, now you know where to go.