The academic basis of SNE

Transcription

1 The academic basis of SNE A matter of principles dr. C. P. J. Koymans Informatics Institute University of Amsterdam August 31, 2009 dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

2 The Scientific Method The Scientific Method The method employed in exact science and consisting of Careful and abundant observation and experiment Generalisation of the results into formulated laws and statements (Source: Webster s dictionary) dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

3 An academic topic Hypothetical Theoretical Not leading to a practical result Not leading to an immediate result Focus on details dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

4 Academic Principles Precision Completeness Formalised Standards, Agreements and Definitions Orthogonality Structure Open Technology dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

5 Precision Bookkeeper s Mentality? No! (At least not only) Do not follow rules just out of habit or by imitation Do follow the rules because of knowledge and understanding Where do you come across precision? (sendmail rewriting) DNS (.) Web (certificates)... (... ) dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

6 Completeness (1) infrastructure processing on all machines processing for *.domain.nl DNS infrastructure Machines with multiple interfaces dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

7 Completeness (2) Security infrastructure Allow unless deny: incomplete Deny unless allow: complete dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

8 Formalisation RFCs come close to scientific publications Standards and agreements Not mathematical enough and (hence) not precise enough Definities What is a text file? Postel s principle dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

9 Postel s principle Postel s principle Internet Engineering Principle Be liberal in what you accept, and Be conservative in what you send Jon Postel RFC 760, 761, 791, 793 Academic means replacing liberal by conservative What would replacing conservative by liberal lead to? dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

10 Orthogonality Example: where do you install your own software? Linux: eveything in /usr/local/bin and/or /usr/bin? SNE: everything in /sne? Packages give optimal orthogonality, provided they are implemented in the right way dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

11 Structure DNS and subdomains Naming machines Filesystem organisation Configuration files Consistent layout Completeness Scripts and Software dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

12 Open Technology Open Source Being cheap(er) is certainly not the main advantage Free Software (Stallman, FSF) Freedom, in the idealistic sense, often (too) dogmatic Science of Software Engineering Open in the sense of scientific Find out, analyse, expand dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

13 Pitfalls Anti-scientific influences Commerce Performance freaks Dabblers and dilettantes Legacy-lovers dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14

14 Pitfalls What we have Commercial professionals Open source amateurs What we need Open source professionals dr. C. P. J. Koymans (UvA) The academic basis of SNE August 31, / 14