At a job I needed a Unix fdump command, so wrote one from memory the one I'd written at university a few months earlier. A few years later at another Unix job I needed an fdump command, so again wrote it from memory, this time remembering to make a printout. Some years ago I was using Linux and needed an fdump command, so wrote it again from scratch typing in the printout.
So, this tool, written entirely by myself, once from whole cloth, twice from memory, in order to just get the damn job done, isn't mine? You're saying that if I use a bit of parcel tape from my bag to seal a box, that parcel tape belongs to my boss, and I can't use it in my next job? Do my pens belong to my boss? Does my car? I read something at work and I have to excise that chunk of memory when I go home? In Job C I learned this neat trick to do long division, when I leave I have to scrub my brain clean, and in Job D work out how to do long division again.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
