Although I have been working in telecom for 5 years and read various standards regularly, I came across this old standard of 1996 recently.

I think it will be useful and interesting to everyone, from programmers and designers, to any other people who are engaged in the creation, design, operation of something more complicated than a can opener.

12 network truths

(original - RFC1925 The Twelve Networking Truths )
R. Kallon, publisher
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April 1, 1996
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Status of this document

This document provides information for the Internet community. This document is not an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of this document is unlimited.

Short review

This document describes the fundamental networking truths of the Internet community. This document does not define a standard, but the feeling that all standards must implicitly correspond to fundamental truths.

Official statement

The truths described in this document are the result of an intensive study of many people over a long period of time, some of which did not plan to make any contribution to this work. The publisher simply gathered all the truths together, and thanks the Internet community for their original presentation.

1. Introduction

This RFC provides information on fundamental network truths. These truths apply to building networks in general, they are not limited to TCP / IP, the Internet, or any other subset of the network community.

2. Network truths

1) It should work.

2) Despite all your efforts, you can not increase the speed of light.

2.a) (therefore). No matter how hard and persistent you try, you will not be able to get a child in less than 9 months. Attempting to speed up this process CAN slow it down, but it will never help birth before.

3) After the right push and the pig will fly quite well. However, this is not necessarily a good idea. It is very difficult to predict where the pig will land, and it’s just as dangerous to sit down when it flies overhead.

4) Some things in life can never be appreciated without being experienced first of all by their own life experiences. Some things in networking can not be fully understood by someone who has never created commercial network equipment and has never managed a working network.

5) It is always possible to combine many different problems into a single, complex, independent solution. In most cases, this is a bad idea.

6) It is easier to move, move the problem (for example, move it to another part of the whole network architecture), rather than solve it.

6.a) (therefore). It is always possible to add another level to create a workaround.

7) There are always special circumstances / events / conditions.

7.a) (therefore). Good, Fast, Cheap: choose any two points (it’s impossible to have all three at the same time).

8) It is much more difficult than you think.

9) Despite all your existing resources, you always need more.

9.a) (therefore). Each network problem requires more time to solve than you think it should have.

10) One size does not fit all.

11) Each old idea will be proposed again under a different name and a different presentation, regardless of whether it works.

11.a) (therefore). See rule 6.a.

12) In the design of protocols, perfection is achieved not when there is nothing to add, but when there is nothing to subtract.