Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet) [LWN.net]

Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 16, 2006 15:59 UTC (Sat) by deepfire (guest, #26138)
Parent article: Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet)

Is the title being a reference to "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by Jon Perkins?

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Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 16, 2006 16:24 UTC (Sat) by arcticwolf (guest, #8341) [Link]

It could just as well be a reference to Thomas Mann's "Confessions of Felix Krull", or any other work with a title along the lines of "confessions of FOOBAR". I'm sure there are many more, so it's pretty useless to speculate on this...

Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 16, 2006 21:51 UTC (Sat) by xtifr (subscriber, #143) [Link]

I seriously doubt it. "Confessions of a Recovering X" is a very common title template (Google turns up 139,000 hits). Whatever the inspiration (assuming it was something specific), it's much more likely that it had the word "Recovering" in the title.

Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 17, 2006 20:50 UTC (Sun) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater was first published in 1821. It is indeed a very common and long-established template.

Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 19, 2006 2:01 UTC (Tue) by xtifr (subscriber, #143) [Link]

We're getting drastically off-topic here, but that title ALSO lacks the word "Recovering" in the title, so it's not the template I was referring to!

Confessions of an English Opium Eater/of St. Augustine are examples of a broader template, but not examples of the template from which this title was _clearly_ derived. And are therefore, pretty much guaranteed not to be the actual, direct inspiration for the title!

Of course, if anyone really cares, I suspect they could just email the author. :)

Confessions of a Recovering NetBSD Zealot (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Sep 18, 2006 15:32 UTC (Mon) by QuisUtDeus (guest, #14854) [Link]

St. Augustine wrote his "Confessions" around A.D. 397, about his conversion from a proud, worldly student of pagan philosophy to Roman Catholicism, for which conversion his mother, St. Monica, had been praying most of his life.

Many books have used "confessions" in their title about the author's change in world view: what they thought was wrong, they now think is right, and vice versa.