i didn't know what i was expecting when i started to read this but it wasn't that. i didn't know the author before the article but i thought it was really an amazing read. i think it speaks very well to the power of collaboration and a congenial and healthy work environment.

as another commenter mentioned the thing about the branch prediction bit flipping in awk was quite something. the SE Toolkit to monitor kernel perf, which could run for years without issue - was something cool too. the guy who found and fixed a kernel bug offering the biggest performance win in Solaris 8 in the course of writing the first book in a series called Solaris Internals - wow. the description of "the can of worms project" in which they run workloads that look like what customers might use, things that that go beyond typical eng team benchmarks, and the meltdown prevention and heading off of customer issues, it's a great concept from my personal point of view. i appreciated the touching on other more human subjects like the capacity planning DB pricing calculator for customers and the bizdev, relationship, and product design points.

i started off being jealous of what the guy was saying but i was so blown away by everything that i had forgotten that feeling by the end of the article. it was replaced with awe.