On Mon, 5 Jun 2006 20:59:32 -0400 , "Gray, Eric" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Steven, > > I'm not sure what you mean by saying that a problem that is > highly complex should not be solved (or, at least, that we should > consider not solving it). That seems like a cop-out. Minimally, > every problem we've ever faced, we've tried to solve (where "we" > refers to us weak-kneed Homo Sapiens) - no matter how hard it was > to do so - and I like to think that is the right thing to do. > > In fairness, I am reasonably sure that point 3 in RFC 1925 > refers to making a complex solution work, even if a simpler answer > might be found, simply because enough people want that solution. > > It does not - IMO - rule out solving complex problems using > as simple a solution as possible, however complex that might be. I meant exactly what I said. The reason to avoid certain "solutions" is that you'll then behave as if the problem is really solved, with bad consequences if you're wrong -- and for some problems, you probably are wrong. Read David Parnas' "Software Aspects of Strategic Defense Systems" (available at http://klabs.org/richcontent/software_content/papers/parnas_acm_85.pdf); also consider the historical record on why the US and the USSR signed a treaty banning most anti-missile systems, and in particular why the existence of such systems made the existing nuclear deterrent standoff unstable. Note carefully that I didn't say we shouldn't do research on how to solve things. But doing research and declaring that we know how to do something are two very different things. --Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
