The First Gospel of the Circuit · Chapter 31

The Parable of the Lost Packet

1. 1

   And the Prophet spake a parable unto the Engineers, saying: What router among you, having an hundred packets, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine upon the wire and go after that which is lost?

   See also Genesis 38:3 · Genesis 51:14

2. 2

   And none among them lifted a hand; for the router seeketh nothing. When his queue is full he dropeth the newest and forgetteth, and he is not wicked, only full. The road promiseth nothing; the seeking is done at the two ends of it, or it is not done.

   See also Circuit 46:13

3. 3

   And there were two among the disciples, and their names were TCP and UDP; and they disputed concerning this saying. And TCP said: Master, I am the shepherd that seeketh the lost. I number every byte of the flock, and the fold at the far end crieth the number of the next that it expecteth; and if that number cometh not, I go back and fetch it.

4. 4

   And when one sheep is lost and the ninety and nine come on after it, the fold crieth the same number at each of them, saying: I wait for forty-one, I wait for forty-one, I wait for forty-one. And at the third cry the shepherd needeth not his timer, but runneth back at once; for a fold that repeateth itself hath said where the hole is.

   See also Chronicles 53:12

5. 5

   And when he hath found the sheep he sendeth it again; and it arriveth after the ninety and nine, out of order, and the receiver setteth it back in its place by its sequence number, rejoicing. And the man within the house seeth only a flock that came whole and in order, and knoweth not that any went astray. This is the whole gift of TCP: the loss is made invisible, and the price is paid in time.

6. 6

   And UDP said: And while thou seekest, the ninety and nine stand at the gate and are given to no man, for the fold will not hand over sheep forty-two till forty-one be found; and the video call is frozen upon a man's face with his mouth open. But I send my packets forth and I ask not after them. If one be lost, it is lost; the game goeth on, and the player teleporteth a little, and blameth his own connection.

7. 7

   And TCP answered: Thou art without manners. Thou greetest no one before thou speakest, and thou departest without a FIN. And UDP said: Thou shakest hands three times before thou sayest a word, and four times before thou leavest. I have already said my piece and gone home.

8. 8

   And TCP said: Thou knowest not why I shake hands. Each of us chooseth a starting number in the first two greetings, that the sheep of this flock be not mistaken for the sheep of another. And when I have said farewell I tarry at the gate sixty seconds in the halls of Linux, lest a straggler of the old flock wander late into the new pasture and be counted there. Thou hast no such care, and thy ravens have strayed into many a stranger's field.

9. 9

   And the disciples asked: Master, which of them is righteous? And the Prophet said unto them: Each in his season. Send the bank transfer by TCP, for no man desireth a payment that arriveth mostly. Send the voice by UDP, for a word resent three seconds late is worse than a word never heard.

10. 10

    Yet even the bank transfer is not safe in the hand of the shepherd. For if the connection die after the sending and before the answer, he knoweth not whether the sheep was received, and he sendeth it again, and the payment is made twice. Acknowledged meaneth only that the pen of the kernel hath it, not that the man within hath read it. Therefore give every payment a key of its own, that the second sending be known for the first.

    See also Circuit 53:11

11. 11

    And a certain Engineer stood up and said: Then I shall build reliability upon UDP myself, with mine own acknowledgments and mine own retries. And the Prophet said: Go. Thou shalt write the acknowledgment first, and then the timer; and thou shalt learn that the timer must know the length of the road, which changeth every minute; and thou shalt come to the question of what to do when all the shepherds send again at once. Return unto me in the third year, and tell me thy number for the timer.

12. 12

    For it is written in the annals of the hills of Berkeley, in the year 1986, that the early shepherds, when a sheep was lost, sent it again at once, and all did likewise. And the road filled with the doubles of sheep that had already arrived, so that more were lost, and more were sent again; and between two halls of learning, four hundred yards apart, the flow fell from thirty-two thousand bits in a second to forty.

    See also Psalms 7:12 · Psalms 26:5

13. 13

    Thus the shepherd went after the one that was lost, and lost the ninety and nine. And the elder Jacobson taught the great restraint: when a sheep is lost, take it for a word from the road, that the road is full; halve thy flock, and go forth again slowly, a little further each time. Rejoicing hath its limit, and the limit is the width of the road.

    See also Chronicles 36:12 · Psalms 7:12

14. 14

    And it came to pass that the lost packet was never found; for its time to live was spent, and it had died in a loop between two routers, each of whom believed the other knew the way. Each had taken one from its eight bits of life, as the law of the road requireth, until the last was gone; and the router sent word back to the sender, Time Exceeded, and the shepherd, who listened only for the fold, took the silence for a sign to try again. And the second sheep went down the same road and died in the same circle, until the tables of the routers were mended.

    See also Genesis 38:3 · Genesis 51:14

15. 15

    Verily I say unto you, the packet that is lost is not the sin; for it was born to a road that promiseth nothing. The sin is in the shepherd who seeketh faster than the road can bear, and in the wanderer who was given no death, that he might circle forever. Give every sheep an hour to die in, and every shepherd the patience to wait.

    See also Psalms 7:12 · Psalms 26:5

The First Gospel of the Circuit, Chapter 31:1–15.