This article is about a year old, but it doesn't matter: Diaries of a Core Maintainer #6:) A tale of two developers.

Re-reading that story is always a bit scary and cause for self-reflection because my approach is so similar to Pat's, particularly when starting out with a new idea.

I could say I'm posting this now for people considering getting involved with an open-source project but afraid to jump in, or ask questions, or wondering if they're good enough, and that's usually what I send it to people for but... this time, what I really want if for more people to know about it, so they can send it back to me when I really need it! It's okay not to know everything or get things perfectly right the first time. It's ok to learn new things along the way.

For nearly two weeks, I've been sitting on a (tested!) Sugar patch because I don't fully understand the intricacies of "why it actually works" (xterm magic, there'll probably be a post about that soon!). I probably still would be digging into the entrails of xterm, tty and whatever other dead-ends I keep losing myself into for this bug, had someone not reminded me of this story. The patch is now submitted, right beside a comment explaining where I'm stuck and asking for help. Looking forward to the next step :)

And if you know why a xterm control sequence documented since at least 1994 could be sending back an abridged output on a different (but recent) hardware / software stack, please do let me know...