> To some extent, the popularity of NFS (is there any NAS box
> that talks AFS?) and Linux is one big testament to the
> power of "good enough" or "worse is better".
i really hate this meme. it doesn't mean anything.
imho, the reasons nfs is popular are mostly political and
logistical rather than technical. sun pushed nfs,
and in the days when nfs became popular, it was
difficult to add a fs to your closed-source, no compiler
operating system. so saying calling nfs an example of
"worse is better" implies that using nfs is a technical
decision. i don't think that it is.
even in the cannonical usage, "worse is better" is
a parody of the idea that complexity is expensive and
adding complexity needs to be motivated by a
real problem and a real solution. i believe rob
said (but can't find a reference)
fancy algorithms are slow when n is small.
n is usually small.
the opposing idea, "better is better" of course is
tautology. unless you use bill clintonesque definitions.
so perhaps we should call this the "bill clinton"
philosophy.
- erik
