Absolutely terrific software. One good memory is being stuck at a client site (20 years ago) trying to figure out an interop issue with our network equipment. In the two weeks I was there I found it helpful to write a protocol decoder plugin and it was easy work. In the end it was our bug, a bitmask applied for select() was not removed when the implementation changed to epoll() ... in essence a 1-bit memory corruption error that could have very delayed consequences. Funny what memories stand out.
I admire your ability to find joy in these things.
At the beginning of my career, I once spent a week in a secure facility trying to understand an annoying network bug using tcpdump because we weren’t allowed to install wireshark. The whole thing turned out to be a combination of the worst bug I have ever seen in a standard library in our decade old version of GNAT (Ada lib - admittedly it had been corrected seven years before) and an ARP misconfiguration.
The whole week was awful and largely responsible for me moving on to greener pastures. It takes a special kind of character to enjoy these things.
