The Art of Network Engineering Radia Perlman: You’re Solving the Wrong Problem
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Mar 25, 2026 
Radia Perlman, legendary computer scientist who invented Spanning Tree Protocol, shares sharp historical and technical perspectives. She explains why many networking problems stem from solving the wrong thing. Short, thought-provoking takes cover Ethernet’s original intent, why Spanning Tree was a stopgap, blurred Layer 2/3 lines, BGP’s real role, and risks around quantum and AI.
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Define The Problem Before You Code
- Always identify the problem before building a solution; premature coding creates brittle monstrosities.
- Radia's 'pee on hand' example shows misdiagnosing leads to useless fixes and extra complexity.
CLNP Offered Built-In Mobility And Zero Config
- CLNP (ISO) provided hierarchical 14-byte prefixes plus flat 6-byte within-cloud IDs enabling mobility and zero-configuration.
- Radia argues CLNP removed ARP and allowed moving without changing layer-3 addresses inside a cloud.
Design Routing For Self-Stabilization
- Routing must be self-stabilizing: networks should recover once faulty inputs stop.
- Radia found ARPANET's algorithm could be permanently broken by a few mangled packets, so she designed resilient alternatives.