Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!decvax!ucbvax!A.ISI.EDU!LYNCH
From: LYNCH@A.ISI.EDU (Dan Lynch)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re:  Life in the Swamps / Testing
Message-ID: <12374264723.24.LYNCH@A.ISI.EDU>
Date: 13 Feb 88 01:46:17 GMT
References: <8802112133.aa06023@Huey.UDEL.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 26

Regarding Testing:  It is an economic issue.  Who could argue that bakeoffs
aren't very useful?  Who can argue that conformance testing against a
"standard" isn't useful?  Neither is sufficient to ensure interoperability
in all cases.  Heck, the randomness of network behaviour ensures that
we will never get it perfect.  (Folks stil find bugs in 20 year old
Fortran and Cobol compilers...)

If we had a test suite that was in some sense 'official" we would not
have fiascos like I saw at Uniforum this week!  There was the usual
"hook all the TCP/IP speaking booths together" party.  And it barely
worked.  Why?  Two reasons:  1)  Not everyone did subnetting "right"
and 2)  the rwho broadcast storms made the net unusable much of
the time.  If we had a conformance test suite available that everyone
could test against, then these two rather simple hurdles could be tested
for and vendors would have to pass them to get a "certificate".  Would
this make the world "perfect"?  Probably not, but it would make it a lot, lot
better!  

Folks, we are actually trying to get our work done with these marvelous
networks.  And the world is going to be a lot better off when we are
all able to communicate with each other with ease.  Let's all vote to
support whatever it takes to make it work well.  No one approach will
suffice.

Dan
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