Re: breaking the IP model (or not)

[Keith Moore <moore at cs.utk.edu>]

> I'm being a bit extreme but the point is that just because something is 
> architecturally bad doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, since these days it 
> takes us years to make any architectural enhancements.

perhaps architectural impurity alone shouldn't keep you from doing 
something, but the fact that something violates fundamental design 
assumptions should cause you to do some analysis and hard thinking
about the likely consequences of using them.  and if you are in the
business of selling boxes that violate the design assumptions you 
shouldn't misrepresent these to your customers.

most of these hacks can be employed in ways that are mostly harmless,
but knowing when they are harmless and when they will cause harm
can be quite difficult.  NATs seemed mostly harmless when they were 
first deployed; now they're a huge problem.

Keith