Re: large page patch (fwd) (fwd)

Bill Rugolsky Jr.
2002-08-09T17:43:18Z

On Fri, Aug 09, 2002 at 09:52:53AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> Read up on positivism.

Please don't. Read Karl Popper instead.

> "If it can't be measured, it doesn't exist".

The positivist Copenhagen interpretation stifled important areas of
physics for half a century. There is a distinction to be made between
an explanatory construct (whereby I mean to imply nothing fancy, no
quarks, just a brick), and the evidence that supports that construct
in the form of observable quantities. It's all there in Popper's work.

> The point being that there are things we can measure, and until anything
> else comes around, those are the things that will have to guide us.

True, as far as it goes. Measurement=good, idle-speculation=bad.

But it pays to keep in mind that progress is nonlinear. In 1988, Van
Jabobsen noted (http://www.kohala.com/start/vanj.88jul20.txt):

(I had one test case that went like

Basic system: 600 KB/s
add feature A: 520 KB/s
drop A, add B: 530 KB/s
add both A & B: 700 KB/s

Obviously, any statement of the form "feature A/B is good/bad"
is bogus.) But, in spite of the ambiguity, some of the network
design folklore I've heard seems to be clearly wrong.

Such anomalies abound.

Regards,

Bill Rugolsky