Christina and I went to see Radia Perlman at tonight's BayLISA meeting. I had no idea how much fun I would have listening to the history of the spanning tree algorithm for bridges, anecdotes from various governing bodies (IETF and its ilk), and her overview of the OSI 7 layer, no wait, I guess that should be 4 layer, model.
Some great Radia-isms from the evening:
- "It was as if, like Tinkerbell, it died from a lack of love"
- "It's the protocol of the future and always will be" - about IPV6
- "If, after ten years, you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!"
She also has a bunch of great stories (e.g., the protocol "SQSA", which she proposed when a colleague was browbeaten for having asked what "idempotent" meant...SQSA means "straightforward question straightforward answer", which she felt would not be patentable as it was already in use at other organizations, and which she hoped could be implemented in software without requiring a change in hardware -- too funny!). BTW, notice that Google, being Google, has implemented the idempotent adwords ad.
In any case, if you get a chance to see her talk, it's a really fun evening. And don't forget to ask her about (a) the story of knowing your problem before solving it and (b) seeing her book in an empty airport.
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