deadgrey19

This is the trouble with submitting to OS conferences. Their networking knowledge is typically limited. I’ve seen the same thing happen in the past.

FWIW - I don't think it would be that hard to port VMA or ExaSOCK to run on top of DPDK, certainly less effort than making a whole new category of operating system!

But ... selling the hardware is where those companies make their money, so there's not much of a business case for making your free and open-source software run on other people's (cheap) NICs.

Fair enough. My guess is that the commercial solutions are simply going where the money is. If there was a commercially pressing need to port to other systems, I’m sure it can be done.

With that said, it's one thing to have a legitimate reason for preferring an alternative approach. But the paper doesn't even mention these solutions, which means that the authors are either ignorant of what's already been done (bad), or deliberately avoiding comparisons to alternative approaches (worse).

Exactly this happened to me. We bought the TV and for years things were great. Really loved the functionality of the smart TV. Being able to stream YouTube at a moments notice was great.

But then the adverts started. We paid $3000 for this TV. Not a low end “ad-supported tv” The only way to “opt out” is to disable the “smart” TV function which I have done. Any smarts now comes from my Apple TV which does not thrust averts in my face. Needless to say, my last Samsung purchase ever.

I think you're missing the point. I'm talking about the concept of mathematically modelling the program first, before writing it (as per the article). This process only applies to certain types of applications, ones that are rooted in algorithmic transformations (like compression), rather than in system and I/O operations, like copying a packet from a network RX buffer into a disk block, in the most efficient way.

What I'm discussing here is the general concept of modelling your program formally before writing it (as per the article). What I'm arguing is that this type of approach is only possible for a certain set of applications which take the form of y = f(x), where f(x) is some type of data transformation /computation operation (e.g. calculate the GCD of these ints, find the shortest path through a given graph, sort this set etc). There's another set of applications which I/O bound, are very important, and yet, the "computation" that they preform is limited to none. These applications are rooted in, and bounded by system parameters, like understanding how disks work, how network cards work, how CPUs work etc. This is an optimisation problem, but not one that can be modelled mathematically (in any reasonable way) because of the vast complexities of the system. Building a TLA+ "proof" of this system will reduce trivially to x = x, and yet, the system is still important, and difficult to write well.

How so? Can you give an example?

Thinking in math first has been the catch cry of functional programmers (and their formal logic/verification friends) for decades. And there's nothing wrong with it, unless the problem you are trying to solve actually requires performance. Then, you have to think in "system" first. For example: Write a program that captures network packets and stores them to disk as fast as possible. There's no maths to think of here. The complexity is all in the "fast" part, and to solve that, a deep understanding of the architecture of the system is necessary. Fancy algorithms (maths) will not help you here. e.g. Will compression help? Depends on the properties of the system. Will batching help? Depends on the system. Will threading help? Depends on the system.

+100 to this. I had him for H Comp 1A, literally changed my life .

FPGAs are not a new thing. But FPGAs that are big enough and fast enough to outperform ASICs (in the networking context) is a new thing.

Re the title. It's perhaps a bit poetic, but it's not misleading. What else could the title possibly mean? It's either going to be about 3D printing or FPGAs. You can't seriously expect to actually download a physical piece of hardware.