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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!samba.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!bug.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!ns2.mainstreet.net!news.PBI.net!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.uoregon.edu!symiserver2.symantec.com!usenet From: tedm@agora.rdrop.com Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: TCP latency Date: 11 Jul 1996 05:04:30 GMT Organization: Symantec Corporation Lines: 35 Message-ID: <4s220u$nmq@symiserver2.symantec.com> References: <4paedl$4bm@engnews2.Eng.Sun.COM> <x7687w1dsr.fsf@oberon.di.fc.ul.pt> Reply-To: tedm%toybox@agora.rdrop.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.6.34.1 X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 v1.2 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.networking:44750 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3994 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:23279 In <x7687w1dsr.fsf@oberon.di.fc.ul.pt>, Pedro Roque Marques <roque@di.fc.ul.pt> writes: >I've the feeling you are still missing Terry's point (at least as I understand >it). Benchmarking can be used in two ways: to evalute a hardware+software set >behaviour in a pratical application/enviroment/use and to evaluate code/design >decisions. lmbench is more oriented IMHO to the second goal although it is >based on examples of read world problems. Discussing what tcp latency is >in groups oriented to OS design should be ok and useful even when people don't >start to take it as a "My OS is better than yours" argument. > You are probably correct in that Terry was speaking theoretically, rather than practically. In any case, this thread has grown from the "my D$$K is bigger than yours" to something more approximating reality, and has gotten more useful and interesting as a result. I have to say that one of the more common problems in the business today is attempting to take benchmarks and apply them to everything, that is what I was arguing against anyhow. However, I do disagree somewhat with you, I don't see the use of most benchmarks as "evaluating a software+hardware set of behavior in a practical environment/application/use", now there's a mealy-mouthed sentence if I ever heard one! :-) I prefer to rely on observed behavior of the device, rather than someone's meaningless published benchmark. That's why I don't make large computing equipment purchases that are without money-back guarentee. (unfortunately this seems to be a rarity in this business also) As far as making design decisions as a result of benchmarking, well that's all well and good. I've usually heard that referred to as "testing" though. ;-) I guess if your attempting to design a product that is better than your competition's it's called "Benchmarking" and if your just trying to design a product that is the absolute best that it can be it's called testing ;-) Ted