[HCoop-Discuss] Frank's confusion

[Adam Chlipala]

Adam Megacz wrote:
> Franklin Gordon Bynum <frank at hcoop.net> writes:
>   
>> but the example of krunk going down must seal the issue for good:
>> AFS-- for practical reasons, not technical ones-- is that AFS isn't
>> going to work for us at this point in time as we have it now.
>>     
>
> Hi Frank.  I can understand your confusion, as you yourself have
> mentioned that you aren't familiar with computers.
>
> In computing, we make a distinction between hardware and software.
>
> Krunk's ethernet defective controller is what is called a "hardware"
> failure.  AFS is a piece of software.  Startling as this may sound,
> software cannot cause hardware failures.
>   

This seems like a deliberately disingenuous argument.  If we weren't 
using a network filesystem, then a failure of network hardware wouldn't 
break the filesystem.  It's that simple.

The whole line of discussion is about which architectural choices make 
sense, given their likely impacts on the services we provide, and given 
the amount of labor that we're willing to devote to setting things up 
and keeping them working.  Some problems are inevitable if you use 
distributed systems; such problems can provide motivation to avoid 
distribution without casting aspersions on particular systems