Originally, Unix had no /var ; what is currently put there wentinto /usr instead (with some of it going into /etc ), so you had /usr/log , /usr/spool , /usr/tmp , and so on. Remnants of thisera still linger on in /etc , where you still find a certain number offrequently updated data files like /etc/passwd .

(One might sensibly ask why Unix had both /tmp and /usr/tmp . Myguess is

Here is something that I have not been at all clear about: the sortof checklist usage that I've written about isspecifically using checklists in order to plan and organize one timethings, such as migrating our mail storage .

I care about this because I think of it as a different sort of thingentirely than ongoing work that we do repeatedly and routinely. Ifyou do something routinely and it is not trivial, you should have adocumented procedure for it. However, that procedure may or may notinvolve

One of the things I've been doing much more over the past couple ofyears is using checklists , the virtues of which I'vewritten about before . Recently I have been thinkingabout why they work, and came to the obvious realization: they're aform of talking to the duck .

Before you write down a checklist, you may think that you understandeverything that you need to do, but it is in your head and your head isvery good at fooling you. Like explaining something out