[ih] vm vs. memory

[Paul Vixie]

warning: this message actually contains some historical references and 
stories concerning the internet.

Noel Chiappa wrote:
> ...
> The reason is that if you evolve a system _without understanding where you
> want to wind up (with a coherent system, designed _as a system_), you'll wind
> up with a convoluted cancer that doesn't do a lot of what you want it to.
> ...

i think that the internet is that, and had to be that, and that anything 
which wasn't going to become that, could not have become what the 
internet has become.

> So, yes, in an evolving system like the Internet, one may not have all the
> requirements in hand at any point, _but_ at any point in time, one should have
>
> - i) the requirements, as best they are understood at the time

such requirements are _highly_ subjective. what we actually do is add 
whatever anybody wants, no matter how bad an idea others may prove it to 
be. internet history interprets noncooperation as damage, and routes 
around it.

> - ii) an overall system architecture which meets those goals, starting with
>    'how many namespaces are there, and what are their semantics'

the IAB certainly tries. like when they said NAT was a bad idea. (hint.)

> - iii) a plan for how to evolve the system to get there, from where you are

there _never was_ enough cohesion among all the people and companies who 
wanted to add their protocol or their app or their feature to the 
internet, to get a meaningful plan. not even when the whole IETF fit in 
one classroom. to imagine getting to such a plan today, i'd have to take 
hard drugs.

> ...
> But unless you know where you're going, you won't get there.
> ...

right! and that's where we are. and, where we're going.

> ...
> I can pretty much guarantee you that if you re-build a plane, _without some
> overall plan as to what the result will be_, your plane will not work.
>
> 	Noel

Eppur si muove.

-- 
P Vixie