Re: Why the Internet? -- second the motion

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> 
> The key to an understanding of why the Internet is such an important
> resource for schools and libraries is SCALABILITY.  The Internet has
> a structure which allows it to accommodate increasing numbers of users
> at a given site or at multiple sites in a region without a wholesale
> re-engineering of the system and without costs which grow in strict
> proportion to the number of users.
>
Bob's close to the target here.  As our economy shifts from
vertically oriented (pre-Industrial Revolution) methods of
building information systems to a more assembly-line oriented
one, the role of the network becomes increasingly critical.

I've dealt with a lot of large information systems and the ones
that put the computer or the sensor at the center and then try
to build out routinely come in over schedule and over budget ...
if they work at all.  But those systems that are network-centric
(and treat computers and sensors and ... as end systems attached
to the network) have a much higher probability of succeeding.
	Additionally, as Bob noted, they are more scalable.
And flexible and robust ... the list of Good Things is not
inconsiderable.  (Most of my experience here is in military
and government information systems, but that doesn't seem to make
much difference, except that the military has brute-forced a
few more of the kluges into success than the commercial world -- with
our tax dollars).  

The bottom line lesson here runs like this:
	- get the network done first
	- do it right
If you do, the rest of the system design and engineering
gets a lot easier and the risks of getting it wrong decrease,
because it's a lot easier to recover.

Chasing the thread a bit farther, this leads me to the conclusion
that education about the Internet -- how it's put together, how
it's managed, what its economy looks like, ... is a valid
and important subject for our educational system.
	Note that this point is entirely additional to the
observation that most of the rest of this list understands --
that the Internet is a good educational research tool.
 
Rex Buddenberg

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