KevBurnsJr

Some errors are so obscure that they hardly warrant resolution.

I encountered this error when upgrading my dev environment to PHP5.3

[notice] Parent: child process exited with status 3221225477 -- Restarting.

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/287254?replies=1#post-1128557

It took me like 4 hours to track down the problem.
I didn’t fix it, but I did find a way to circumvent it.
Pragmatically, I find the solution satisficial.

Satisficing (a portmanteau of “satisfy” and “suffice”) is a decision-making strategy that attempts to meet criteria for adequacy, rather than to identify an optimal solution. A satisficing strategy may often be (near) optimal if the costs of the decision-making process itself, such as the cost of obtaining complete information, are considered in the outcome calculus.

Satisficial is a word I just made up as an adjective form of the verb Satisfice.

My solution may not be perfect, but the system’s behavior is close enough to what I want that I can’t really justify spending any more time on the problem. To determine a solution to fix the root of the problem would undoubtedly require a time investment several orders of magnitude larger than actually making the change. Considering that I’ve already spent 4 hours on this crap of bullshit, I’m ready to move on.

Some people say: “Never quit.”
I say: “Never say never.”

To me, this sort of decision making strategy is an essential aspect of execution intelligence.

Just ask Deep Blue =)