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Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

amturing.acm.org

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Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#21

Post by em-bee »

jacquesm wrote: post #13
hoseja wrote: post #7

What's the killer feature that differentiates Ethernet from other phy protocols?

The fact that it allowed for all kinds of topologies, and that it served as a bus (shared medium, hence the name 'Ether') rather than a point-to-point link is what I think made the biggest difference. Of course now that we all use switched links they are point-to-point again but an ethernet 'hub' gave you the same effect as a bus with all devices seeing all of the traffic. This made efficient broadcast protocols poss…

for years i was carrying around an ethernet splitter that would allow me to connect two devices into one ethernet port. i last used it some 10 years ago in a place without wifi

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#22

Post by Sporktacular »

Ethernet was always inefficient, with a crazy amount of unused legacy space reserved in an unnecessarily large header. CSMA/CD for contention was one of the ugliest medium access solutions imaginable. The coax implementation needing termination plugs was also ugly. Its advantage was cost, having had no license fees, making it suited to consumer/commercial applications driving economies of scale. It's the VHS of datacomms.

It's evolved, thankfully, but it remains an ugly, inefficient standard that only has life because of its legacy. And it's been increasingly jimmied into professional, carrier applications for which it was never intended and where far superior, though more expensive solutions already existed.

That's not to say its creators don't deserve credit. It did its job well enough for its early days. But that's why this award comes too late. Because now Ethernet is the bloated, inelegant dinosaur we've built an ecosystem around, but to admire it is to forget the competitors it drove to extinction along the way.

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#23

Post by lunfard000 »

jacquesm wrote: post #18
lunfard000 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, years ago. But today Ethernet is just as scammy as everyone else, we've been stuck at 1 Gbps on consumer grade hardware for more than 15 years. There are claims (unverified ofc) about their executives boasting about their stupid margins. 1 Gb switch is like 10-20 euros meanwhile 2.5 Gbps is like over 100...

I can't make heads or tails of your comment. What is scammy about Ethernet and what 'stupid margins' does Ethernet have? It's a networking standard, not a company.

You are may actually be right, sorry, my rant may have been misguided. "networking standard" doesnt make it free of royalties though, dont/didn't companies pay to use the Wifi protocol?

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#24

Post by caseysoftware »

Bob has been an active member of the Austin startup community for 10+ years and I've talked with him many times. As a EE, it was cool meeting him the first time and once I'd chatted with him a few times, I finally asked the question I'd been dying to ask: How'd you come up with "Metcalfe's Law"?

Metcalfe's Law states the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of devices of the system.

When I finally asked him, he looked at me and said "I made it up."

Me: .. what?

Him: I was selling network cards and I wanted people to buy more.

Me: .. what?

Him: If I could convince someone to buy 4 instead of 2, that was great. So I told them buying more made each of them more valuable.

It was mind blowing because so many other things were built on that "law" that began as a sales pitch. Lots of people have proven out "more nodes are more valuable" but that's where it started.

He also tells a story about declining a job with Steve Jobs to start 3Com and Steve later coming to his wedding. He also shared a scan of his original pitch deck for 3Com which was a set of transparencies because Powerpoint hadn't been invented yet. I think I kept a copy of it..

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#25

Post by wistlo »

The archetypal "good enough" solution:

Instead of preventing collisions, tolerating and managing them.

I think of Ethernet often when assessing how close to perfection I need to get in my work.

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#26

Post by jack_riminton »

lispython wrote: post #17

A veritable hero of our times boasts a mere 688 followers on his Twitter account: https://twitter.com/RobertMMetcalfe (as of the dispatch of this message).

I there must be another internet law which states that the best twitter accounts have around this number

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#27

Post by ethbr0 »

jacquesm wrote: post #13
hoseja wrote: post #7

What's the killer feature that differentiates Ethernet from other phy protocols?

The fact that it allowed for all kinds of topologies, and that it served as a bus (shared medium, hence the name 'Ether') rather than a point-to-point link is what I think made the biggest difference. Of course now that we all use switched links they are point-to-point again but an ethernet 'hub' gave you the same effect as a bus with all devices seeing all of the traffic. This made efficient broadcast protocols poss…

To build on your comment, although it's been years since I studied Ethernet in depth...

- (On the bus thread) Ethernet started from an assumption of bad behavior (out of spec cabling, misbehaving clients, etc.) and tighten requirements just enough to construct a useful network. Much better balance between de facto ruggedness vs performance than its peers.

- From the beginning, Ethernet reasoned that it was cheaper to put logic in purpose-built networking hardware than endpoints (i.e. PC network adapters). This was a better scaling tradeoff. 1x $$$ network device + 100x $ client adapter vs 1x $$ networking device + 100x $$ client adapter.

- Because of the above, you started to get really cost- and data-efficient networks when the cost of Ethernet switches plummeted. (Remember, in early Ethernet days, networks were hub/broadcast-only!)

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#28

Post by nine_k »

Sporktacular wrote: post #22

Ethernet was always inefficient, with a crazy amount of unused legacy space reserved in an unnecessarily large header. CSMA/CD for contention was one of the ugliest medium access solutions imaginable. The coax implementation needing termination plugs was also ugly. Its advantage was cost, having had no license fees, making it suited to consumer/commercial applications driving economies of scale. It's the VHS of datac…

What are some superior competing standards, and could they be implemented in a royalty-free way?

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#29

Post by jacquesm »

lunfard000 wrote: post #23
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't make heads or tails of your comment. What is scammy about Ethernet and what 'stupid margins' does Ethernet have? It's a networking standard, not a company.

You are may actually be right, sorry, my rant may have been misguided. "networking standard" doesnt make it free of royalties though, dont/didn't companies pay to use the Wifi protocol?

What does that have to do with Ethernet?

See:

https://www.iol.unh.edu/sites/default/files/knowledgebase/et...

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet

Re: Bob Metcalfe wins Turing Award

#30

Post by ethbr0 »

Sporktacular wrote: post #22

Ethernet was always inefficient, with a crazy amount of unused legacy space reserved in an unnecessarily large header. CSMA/CD for contention was one of the ugliest medium access solutions imaginable. The coax implementation needing termination plugs was also ugly. Its advantage was cost, having had no license fees, making it suited to consumer/commercial applications driving economies of scale. It's the VHS of datac…

What would you have used (prior to affordable switches) instead of CSMA/CD?
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