--On Tuesday, 08 October, 2002 12:25 -0700 Dave Crocker
<dhc2@dcrocker.net> wrote:
> At 11:38 PM 10/7/2002 +0700, Robert Elz wrote:
>> Attempting to give these things absolute numbers, other than
>> for ease of reference in some particular context is lunacy.
>
> Not that I disagree with your primary point, it is worth
> noting that there is some basis for hovering about 7, for an
> *overall* model.
>
> It's that memory limit thing (7, plus or minus 2.) The plus
> or minus is statistical, so if you want to make sure that
> people really have no trouble grokking the total set, 5 is a
> better choice.
I would suggest that this particular situation has almost
nothing to do with the Miller result. In particular, that
hypothesis derives from work with short-term memory and the
number of things one can keep track of at a time. The purpose
of layering is, to some extent, similar to that of
modularization of other types, i.e., to reduce the number of
things you need to think of at a time. And, from that
standpoint, kre's observation to the effect that "the one you
are looking at, one up, and one down" is what is relevant is
exactly the right short-term memory analysis. And that number
is lots smaller than seven. Or even five.
But this is getting very far afield from anything relevant to
the IETF or network modelling.
john