🚀 go-pugleaf

Okay, I'll bite.

In the early 1970s, when I started hacking across the ARPAnet, the idea
of a dataset (I was in an IBM environment, we did not call them files)
existing on a machine and you not caring where that DS was a really neat
idea.  The thought that a running program might migrate for load
balancing or fault-tolerant reasons was also there.  Ten years later,  I
find Dick Watson, working first at SRI and now LLNL, still working on
these ideas.

The problem of distributed computing is not well defined.  DL mentions
multiprocessors but does not attempt to define a boundary.  Another
problem is that putting a lot of heterogeneous stuff together is hard.

We have a tendency to solve easy problems and leave the hard stuff as
"exercises for the reader ;-)."  To put together really heterogeneous
systems (and I don't mean VAXen and PDP-11s, but Crays, Suns, Britton-Lee
boxes, Evans and Sutherland CT6 systems, etc.) is
1) expensive, 2) hard, 3) lacking in pay-off, appreciation, etc.  Why
work on it when you can make a buck selling PC sofware (sorry, too
cynical).  Look at Ethernet: has an incredible number of detractors, but
every one is using it.  Developing a new network system from hardware to
protocols will probably be as difficult as developing new operating
systems or programming languages.  I wonder how long Boggs/Metcalfe's
Ethernet will be around?  Modification of a joke I wrote for Usenix 1986
Winter:

	What type of networking technology will be around for the 22th
	Century?
	I don't know, but it will be called Ethernet. . . .

I would hope things like Proteon would catch on, but Network Systems
and Xerox technology are out there.  They exist.  People want what
exists.  It's easy to be a success and get support, and this is only the
lowest (hardware) level.  I'm glad NCP is basically gone, but it shocks
me how entrenched DECnet has become.  I also wonder about the
bureaucratic minds behind DECnet (not in DEC, but like in NASA's
communications schemes at a shall remain nameless Center).
The idea that some young scientist (future adminstrator)'s concepts about
the use of computing are being formed now with FORTRAN, DECnet, and
other things sends shivers up my spine.  I can see him decreeing
something solely because it was in "his experience" not because he
studied the issues.

James Martin in his infinite wisdom (sic) noted somewhere that there
needs to be at least two more layers over the ISO model:  I think they
were Accounting, and Administration.  Real network people gawked.  "Real"
world people noded "Yes."

Oh, back to Dick.  He has a neat diagram of the problems:

                            Communications
                                 /  \
                                /    \
                               /      \
                              /        \
             Operating Systems -------- Programming Languages

These three communities don't talk to one another.  He harps that the OS
people are too infatuated with Unix (with relatively poor network support,
brewed, too early on too small a machine), the PL people are infatuated
with Ada, and the networking people, well, they have not been around as
either community.  But is communications all there is to distributed
systems?  I would hope not.  But so long as we get bogged down in things
like character set mapping, byte and bit order, word size, and
instruction set, reliability, we won't see the light at the end of
the tunnel.

Note: Standards alone, won't help. (as a Standard's person)
More experimental work is needed in all areas.

Another antecdote:
There are two ways to a mistake in building a computer communiations net:
	The first mistake is to build it such that it looks like a
	computer: this is SNA.  It's when computer people try to build a
	communications network without really understanding
	communications.
	The second mistake is to build it such that it looks like a
	phone system: this is X.25.  It's when phone people try to build a
	communications network without really understanding computers.

Marty Fouts, John Mashey, others, want to add any thing?

>From the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers:

--eugene miya
  NASA Ames Research Center
  eugene@ames-aurora.ARPA
  "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?"
  "Send mail, avoid follow-ups.  If enough, I'll summarize."
  {hplabs,hao,nike,ihnp4,decwrl,allegra,tektronix,menlo70}!ames!aurora!eugene

Ethernet is a trademark of Xerox Corp.
DECnet is a trademark of Digital Equip. Corp.
Ada is a trademark of the US DOD AJPO.
and Star Wars is a trademark of Lucasfilm, Ltd.