Re: convergence and undoing changes

[Alva Couch]

A few of you have expressed concern about my bluntness in
discussing cfengine's limitations. I apologise to Mark
and the list for this; they deserve better from me.

I am in awe of Mark and cfengine and do not mean to detract
from either cfengine or its author. I know that it represents
the easiest tool to use that is currently available for
managing networks.  This is why I stopped developing my own
tools and study it instead; to figure out how to make the 'best
thing so far' even better.

I have replaced the talk slides mentioned previously with what I
hope is a more equitable description of the limitations that I
am trying to address. Please try not to take these limitations
as destructive criticism; they are in fact issues outside the
declared scope of cfengine and may need to be addressed from
outside of the framework that it provides, through practice or
external tools.

--
Dr. Alva L. Couch
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Tufts University, 161 College Avenue, Medford, MA 02155
Phone: +1 (617) 627-3674
Web: http://www.cs.tufts.edu/~couch