[Isolate-interest] checked vs. unchecked exceptions

[Pete Soper]

Alaric Snell-Pym wrote:

>> a machine shop and encountered a master machinist who didn't know 
>> whether I was from planet Earth or not (but he knew what good tools 
>> look like!!)
> 
> 
> I'd like to hear the story! :-)

I first noticed that this machinist didn't lend his tools to anybody, 
least of all a high school graduate who couldn't keep his uniform from 
being black with grease at the end of each day. I had to earn his trust 
and let him know I wanted to learn and would play by his rules 
dilligently. I don't remember all the details, but remember the 
efficiency of his work and how he wasn't afraid to tell an engineer 
about a bad idea (e.g. wanting to make equipment feet out of solid 
blocks of fiberglass: it took dozens of bandsaw blades just to cut the 
stuff up and solid aluminum blocks would have been done in an hour!) The 
one special moment I recall is how he took out a special box from his 
tool chest (the machinists all had their own tools: the company only 
provided uniforms) and opened it up to show me a pair of precision 
angular (wedge-like) hardened steel blocks that could be put across each 
other to create flats of abitrary heights. He went to great length 
describing how he'd made them. This was in a shop where hole centers 
needed to be precise to a few ten thousandths of an inch (we were making 
parts for the Saturn V Instrument Unit among other projects), so the 
idea that these blocks were very precise impressed me a lot. I think I 
earned a little respect when I used scientific methods to get the dirt 
on some faulty components from a vendor and showed the chance of the 
machinists' usage being to blame was very small. But after four months 
my uniform was still getting a bit greasy and he was still a master 
machinist. I can't remember if he ever allowed me to borrow one of his 
tools. :-)

-Pete