Work is a previlege. I heard it a lot but seldom felt
that way. Over the past few months I did.
Earlier this year, I identified some serious problems
in the existing memory management schemes at my
new job and was able to solve them by proposing
and implementing something invented 23 years ago.
It was flexible and fast. It was satisfying to see my
code beat the hardware-based memory allocator in
performance and, at the same time, solve the
fragmentation problem at the backend.
Some papers are worth reading and re-reading, many
times. The more I think about it, the more I feel in awe
of the wisdom of the inventor and lucky to have been
able to make the contribution.
This experience reminded me of the Santayana quote:
Progress, far from consisting in change,
depends on retentiveness. When change is
absolute there remains no being to improve and
no direction is set for possible improvement,
and when experience is not retained, as among
savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot
remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Thank You!
