i'm sure i'll be told by one of the nanog.police that this isn't appropriate but i think it might be relevant. i don't think the clue level of engineers is going down, i think what's happening is that more and more talent is needed as large emerging carriers (qwest, l3, williams, etc) spring up and the core high-level talent pool hasn't matched the growth. i think there are a lot of young, capable people out there that could learn if only they had a jedi master to teach them. if the newer engineers don't happen to land at one of the companies where the jedi's currently work, they don't get the benefit of learning from them. having said that (just my personal opinion), i wanted to point out an effort caida is leading with an organization called Internet Engineering Curriculum (IEC). this group is trying to help educators at universities build curriculum that revolve around current internet technologies and current best practices. i just attended the first one last week in san diego. they had 3 different "tracks" which were essentially "routing, tcp/ip", "NS2/VINT, or the network simulator package", and "traffic analysis". you can see the details at www.caida.org/iec. i thought it was a good start but the most alarming thing is the low numbers of universities that are actually focused on something other than tradition CS courses. a few have extensive "internet-like" classes and curriculum but many are just getting started. and there are ones like kansas state university, where i graduated, that have maybe two classes that even relate to tcp, routing, internet, etc. anyway, that's my plug so if you're interested, or want your universities to get more involved, have a look at the url or direct university folks to the url. i think this could go a long way in the long run to raising the *number* of people with a higher clue factor which is what i think we're lacking. -brett Christian Nielsen <cnielsen@nielsen.net> on 08/20/99 09:38:44 AM To: Mohamed Hirse <madlion@justin.net> cc: nanog@merit.edu (bcc: Brett Watson/Enron Communications) Subject: Re: Tech contact for Qwest? On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Mohamed Hirse wrote:

I'm sorry your service needs were not met. In the future please feel free to escalate your problems to senior engineers within Qwest IP Operations. Though I understand your frustration, I do not believe NANOG is the appropriate form for this topic. You can contact me via email at

Maybe not an appropriate topic for Nanog... but... it is becoming a sad fact that the clue level of 'internet engineers' is going down. Christian