I thankful for having the opportunity to talk with other UNIX users on a regular basis. I guess it’s just one of those SF perks.
A coworker and I started using POSIX error messages talking to each other online. Sometimes when you’re being poked over a text-based messaging protocol (Jabber, IRC, /usr/bin/talk) and you’re really in the middle of something, having a set of coded constants you can refer to can be a big help.
[...middle of meeting...]
‘you there? can you help me track down a VM?’
’sorry, EBUSY’
or
‘do you have the next revision of that form ready?’
‘one moment, EAGAIN’
Or the hypothetical:
‘Could you print this file out real quick? I’ve got to run to a meeting’
‘WTF? ENOTTY’
’sudo Could you print this?’
‘ok, fine’