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From: darrell@sdcsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.os
Subject: Re: definitions of distributed
Message-ID: <2746@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU>
Date: Sat, 21-Feb-87 04:39:01 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.2746
Posted: Sat Feb 21 04:39:01 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Feb-87 03:22:12 EST
Lines: 18
Approved: mod-os@sdcsvax.uucp

I think the only fully realistic (although not the only useful) definition
of a distributed system is "something that runs on more than one processor
and is not sufficiently well-understood to be a routine programming project".
As soon as we understand how to do something reasonably well, people start
saying "well, that's not *really* a distributed system, it's just a <xxx>",
where fifteen years ago everyone would have agreed that <xxx> would constitute
a type of distributed system.

				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry



-- 
Darrell Long
Department of Computer Science & Engineering, UC San Diego, La Jolla CA 92093
ARPA: Darrell@Beowulf.UCSD.EDU  UUCP: darrell@sdcsvax.uucp
Operating Systems submissions to: mod-os@sdcsvax.uucp