On 3/31/2005 7:22 PM, Brad Knowles wrote:

At 6:27 PM -0600 2005-03-31, Eric A. Hall wrote:

...

Our system is chaotic and annoying at times but it produces better stuff in the form of whole new technologies and in the form of incremental improvements to existing technologies.

Don't pretend that just because you're an American, you automatically know better,

I don't pretend, and it's not because I'm an American

or that your system is inherently better.

I didn't say the system was better, I said it produces "better stuff" insofar as that applies to long-term advancement, but that's nothing to say about here and now. Stability is cheap and friendly, which is arguably better when you are trying to exlain why somebody's TDMA phone won't ever work with a CDMA network. OTOH, I'm glad the world didn't stand still on X.25 and OSI, if you know what I mean. They are different models is all. But if you insist on reading something into that, then perhaps it's yourself suffering from prejudicial bias. Just a thought.

It is entirely possible that the Europeans might know a thing or two

It's possible I guess. I mean, a European did bother advancing beyond Gopher to create HTTP, although I suspect that says more about the low-capitalization requirements of network services than anything about the cultural differences. -- Eric A. Hall http://www.ehsco.com/ Internet Core Protocols http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/