Thanks for the article, which suggests the debate is centuries old:
"Bellheads use phrases like "rate control" or "traffic shaping" when talking about ATM. Traffic is something to be tamed, sorted, and organized. Even though hundreds of different connections end up multiplexed on a single fiber-optic pipe, every ATM connection is treated as if it has its own, narrower pipe..
Netheads, on the other hand, cheerfully admit they have no idea what traffic will look like next month. It is easier, they say, to have the packets fight it out among themselves than to try to force some kind of order on them. Traffic is unpredictable, spontaneous, liable to jump up in strange patterns..
This philosophical divide should sound familiar. It's the difference between 19th-century scientists who believed in a clockwork universe, mechanistic and predictable, and those contemporary scientists who see everything as an ecosystem, riddled with complexity. It's the difference between central and distributed control, between mainframes and workstations."
"Bellheads use phrases like "rate control" or "traffic shaping" when talking about ATM. Traffic is something to be tamed, sorted, and organized. Even though hundreds of different connections end up multiplexed on a single fiber-optic pipe, every ATM connection is treated as if it has its own, narrower pipe..
Netheads, on the other hand, cheerfully admit they have no idea what traffic will look like next month. It is easier, they say, to have the packets fight it out among themselves than to try to force some kind of order on them. Traffic is unpredictable, spontaneous, liable to jump up in strange patterns..
This philosophical divide should sound familiar. It's the difference between 19th-century scientists who believed in a clockwork universe, mechanistic and predictable, and those contemporary scientists who see everything as an ecosystem, riddled with complexity. It's the difference between central and distributed control, between mainframes and workstations."