The Internet Is 'Built Wrong'

An anonymous reader writes "API Lead at Twitter, Alex Payne, writes today that the Internet was 'built wrong,' and continues to be accepted as an inferior system, due to a software engineering philosophy called Worse Is Better. 'We now know, for example, that IPv4 won't scale to the projected size of the future Internet. We know too that near-universal deployment of technologies with inadequate security and trust models, like SMTP, can mean millions if not billions lost to electronic crime, defensive measures, and reduced productivity,' says Payne, who calls for a 'content-centric approach to networking.' Payne doesn't mention, however, that his own system, Twitter, was built wrong and is consistently down."

Comments

http://www...

[Windows_NT]

404 ERROR
PAGE NOT FOUND
Secure information stolen ...
Have a nice day.

SHIT! This internet is not secure!

Re:No one can predict the future well

[Grey_14]

well the problem with snmp in particular, is that a lot of small devices use snmp, such as routers, switches, sensors, etc. And those don't tend to get a lot of upgrades that add stuff like pgp, so instead they have to be vlan'd off to some dark corner or just have snmp disabled entirely.

Re:SO much of it is wrong

[jellomizer]

You miss the point. A good designer and a bad coder creates better output then a poor designer and a good coder.
The focus on Open Source really misses the point. Open Design and Open Specification are far more important then Open Source. With Open Source you get software and if the programmer quits you you will need to reread the code try to get in the mind of the coder to continue development, hense why a lot of good open source projects do die. Open Design and Open Specs means if the program stops we have the information to create a new code. For the bulk of the Small to Medium sized apps rewritting it to meet the specs is quicker then maintaining existing code. Open Source doesn't equate to Open Specifications. You can write you code to do what it does but without letting others know what you plan to acomplish what doors for future development you left open.

It is like making a chasy for a car without letting anyone know what the final car is sopposed to be. Open Spec gives the person how the car is made and what each part does. Then a builder can follow the spec and build the car to the origional concept.