Early Internet & RPC

Readings

• Robert E. Kahn, "Resource-Sharing Computer Communications Networks" (1972):

This is one of the early papers describing the rationale behind the ARPANET (which later evolved into the Internet). For more background on the ARPANET, see Computer Networks - The Heralds of Resource Sharing (optional).

Note how both the ARPANET and and standard operating systems were developed to facilitate resource sharing.

• Bruce J. Nelson, Remote Procedure Call (1981):

You only need to read the thesis summary which starts at page 224 in the PDF. If you have time, however, I'd suggest looking at the rest, particularly the introduction and related work.

• Birrell & Nelson, "Implementing Remote Procedure Calls" (1984)

Compare the perspective of this RPC implementation description with the more design-oriented focus of Nelson's thesis.

Questions to be discussed

1. What did the (technical) world look like when this paper was published?
2. What is the paper about? What are the key ideas?
3. What is the basic argument of the paper, and what sort of evidence is used to make the argument?
4. To what extent do you "believe" the argument? Why?
5. What did the authors get right about the future? What did they miss about the future?
6. What has been forgotten since this paper?