On Education and Acronyms
Ever have a terrible instructor and later find out that you actually learned quite a lot from him? Things come back more easily than you might expect, but I still wouldn’t want that experience again – the grad version is excellent. (caution: inside jokes.)
Anyway, it’s time for some irreverent comments from Panko’s Business Data Networks and Telecommunications book (not that I’m procrastinating):
On battles over standards between the IETF, ISO, and ITU-T: In 1992, IETF member Dave Clark summarized the situation this way: “We reject kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code.”
On acronyms: OSI is the ‘Reference Model of Open Systems Interconnection’ … in any case, OSI is rarely spelled out, which is merciful.
But having started on acronyms, I have to mention my favorite, as documented by Mike Cowlishaw in the IBM Jargon and General Computing Dictionary: GOCB. Here’s how it breaks down:
G: GTMOSI (General Teleprocessing Monitor for OSI – two levels)
O: OSD (OSI Session Driver – three levels!)
C: Control
B: Block
This yields: General Teleprocessing Monitor for Open Systems Interconnection Open Systems Interconnection Session Driver Control Block (and that’s being easy and leaving out the Reference Model part). But that was obvious, right?