From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.1 (2015-04-28) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.6 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_SIGNED, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE, T_DKIM_INVALID autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.1 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 7298f9d2 for ; Sun, 17 Jun 2018 17:34:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 374B7A19E9; Mon, 18 Jun 2018 03:34:14 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97DCAA19D4; Mon, 18 Jun 2018 03:33:50 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=fail reason="signature verification failed" (1024-bit key; unprotected) header.d=thunk.org header.i=@thunk.org header.b=s4sJOJdH; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 008D8A19D4; Mon, 18 Jun 2018 03:33:46 +1000 (AEST) Received: from imap.thunk.org (imap.thunk.org [74.207.234.97]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 29E68A19D3 for ; Mon, 18 Jun 2018 03:33:44 +1000 (AEST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=thunk.org; s=ef5046eb; h=In-Reply-To:Content-Type:MIME-Version:References:Message-ID: Subject:Cc:To:From:Date:Sender:Reply-To:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Content-ID: Content-Description:Resent-Date:Resent-From:Resent-Sender:Resent-To:Resent-Cc :Resent-Message-ID:List-Id:List-Help:List-Unsubscribe:List-Subscribe: List-Post:List-Owner:List-Archive; bh=sYNxdkLaw7p38p3uJqXGwfYvkfNp6KTCqs+na2mC1Ys=; b=s4sJOJdHdlTUdtSxIHlBYlulJQ T2uovTPWjuAvhESozbPE/gbE519929bMrFMMXgFpd+ce427fRArOonmeklUP8xDHgfniN2ZXkltCK PFTpYrIDUA2xIOe3csuk21ArMb3Gkxrk1kOTXqWKi0MqtOy192afHlch/RasIZAQE6rI=; Received: from root (helo=callcc.thunk.org) by imap.thunk.org with local-esmtp (Exim 4.89) (envelope-from ) id 1fUbYc-0005Ng-AN; Sun, 17 Jun 2018 17:33:42 +0000 Received: by callcc.thunk.org (Postfix, from userid 15806) id 4B7CA7A4477; Sun, 17 Jun 2018 13:33:41 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2018 13:33:41 -0400 From: "Theodore Y. Ts'o" To: Noel Chiappa Message-ID: <20180617173341.GB31064@thunk.org> References: <20180616133716.2302F18C0A7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20180616133716.2302F18C0A7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.10.0 (2018-05-17) X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@thunk.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on imap.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Subject: Re: [TUHS] core X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" On Sat, Jun 16, 2018 at 09:37:16AM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote: > I can't speak to the motivations of everyone who repeats these stories, but my > professional career has been littered with examples of poor vision from > technical colleagues (some of whom should have known better), against which I > (in my role as an architect, which is necessarily somewhere where long-range > thinking is - or should be - a requirement) have struggled again and again - > sometimes successfully, more often, not.... > > Examples of poor vision are legion - and more importantly, often/usually seen > to be such _at the time_ by some people - who were not listened to. To be fair, it's really easy to be wise to after the fact. Let's start with Unix; Unix is very bare-bones, when other OS architects wanted to add lots of features that were spurned for simplicity's sake. Or we could compare X.500 versus LDAP, and X.400 and SMTP. It's easy to mock decisions that weren't forward-thinking enough; but it's also really easy to mock failed protocols and designs that collapsed of their own weight because architects added too much "maybe it will be useful in the future". The architects that designed the original (never shipped) Microsoft Vista thought they had great "vision". Unfortunately they added way too much complexity and overhead to an operating system just in time to watch the failure of Moore's law to be able to support all of that overhead. Adding a database into the kernel and making it a fundamental part of the file system? OK, stupid? How about adding all sorts of complexity in VMS and network protocols to support record-oriented files? Sometimes having architects being successful to add their "vision" to a product can be worst thing that ever happened to a operating sytsem or, say, the entire OSI networking protocol suite. > So, is poor vision common? All too common. Definitely. The problem is it's hard to figure out in advance which is poor vision versus brilliant engineering to cut down the design so that it is "as simple as possible", but nevertheless, "as complex as necessary". - Ted