RE: [ns] improving the ns development

[Neundorf Alexander <Alexander.Neundorf.extern@icn.siemens.de>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Lloyd Wood [SMTP:l.wood@eim.surrey.ac.uk]
> Sent:	Tuesday, August 07, 2001 2:20 PM
> To:	Neundorf Alexander
> Cc:	'ns-users@isi.edu'
> Subject:	RE: [ns] improving the ns development
> 
> On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, Neundorf Alexander wrote:
> 
> > 	One example: the gsm/gprs extension from Richa Jain would be
> > a very good candidate for ns, or the BlueHoc from IBM,
> 
> those are large extensions adding new functionality rather than useful
> fixes/patches.
> 
	Yes, but is this a problem ?

> > but since
> > there are these barriers, they don't get into ns that fast. If
> > they were inside ns, more people would test them, find bugs,
> > extend them, fix them :-).
> > 	Really.
> 
> They'd also be expected to work because they're in ns. Updating parts
> of ns to match changes to ns is a large task, and something often gets
> missed. Being in ns doesn't guarantee the functionality will continue
> to work - look at the history of snoop.
> 
> ns is already too large to be easily maintained.
> 
	Well, it's no easy task, but it's doable.


> > I don't think that there are qualitative differences in software
> > developing depending on which kind of software is developed.
> 
> There's a difference between 'testing to work' and 'testing for
> meaningful results known not to be misleading'.
> 
	Well, at the moment where somebody is implementing it, he will probably check whether the results are meaningful for him, and if from one day to another the results of other simulations from other users change they will probably notice this IMO.

> > And I also think most people who *use* ns also more or less know
> > the code of ns and therefor are not really "clueless".
> 
> Well, I use ns, and I'm clueless. Don't ask me about adhoc routing
> or wireless code, or how classifiers work.
> 
	But you are probably not clueless about the stuff you do :-)
	And so the people working with wireless stuff are probably not clueless in this area.

> > With more "core" ns developers on the
> > mailing list they would become "knowledgeable" even faster.
> 
> Nice idea. In theory. I doubt most core ns developers read this
> list...
> 
	Yes, this is one of the problems.

> if more discussion of ns developments was public, it would increase
> the rate of learning for third parties, yes. this list is a vital
> resource.
> 
	Absolutely.

> > 	But as it is now, everybody hacks around, but since nobody
> > sees the changes, it remains "desperate hacking" :-(
> 
> I'm beginning to think that this is normal for any mature codebase.
> 
	I hope (and think) you're wrong :-/
	At least this is wrong for the kde code base, and this is a really large one.


> > 	I don't think ns needs any more features. What it needs is for the
> > > existing features to work together in a more coherent fashion.
> > 
> > 	Well, ns definitely misses support for mobile cellular
> > systems (gsm, gprs, umts). 
> 
> No, that's just buzzword featurism; you can approximate these at a
> suitable (if very crude) level of abstraction with what's already in
> ns, and a lot of GSM-like work has already been done with ns.
> 
	How ?

	Bye
	Alex