Re: [ns] satellite+wired simulation

[Lloyd Wood <l.wood@eim.surrey.ac.uk>]

On Thu, 21 Dec 2000, Tarik Alj wrote:

> >seriously though, it _is_ a mess; rewriting would require throwing
> >out/porting a lot of functionality (throwing away stuff might be the
> >only way you'd get a better simulator - ns v3?), and is, alas, a
> >mammoth thankless task. Who'd do it?
> 
> anybody, with enough innocence, sense of humor, kindness and a brain, willing to 
> work hard (and probably for close to free) looking for a master's thesis 
> project, come on, raise your hand. 

It's reasonable to expect a masters student to come to understand a
single area that ns touches on well, and to modify/extend ns in that
area, relying on the rest of ns as a useful support framework. That
does the work and provides the results that earn the masters.

Getting a masters student to do the restructuring work that many
experienced ns programmers balk at is unfair to the point of cruelty,
likely to be a supervisory nightmare, and IMO not a good idea. If the
masters student just happens to be at ISI and can ask questions of
everyone there, she's in with a fighting chance of doing something
useful. But you still have to ask yourself 'how does the
student benefit?'.

L.

<L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk>PGP<http://www.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/>