
Sally Floyd, who helped things run smoothly online, has died - NaOH
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/science/sally-floyd-dead.html
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mhandley
I worked with Sally on many projects. She taught me more that anyone else
about what it is to do good science in the field of networking. The lengths
she went to to convince herself that she really understood what was happening,
and wasn't just being deluded by a simulation bug, or a lucky case. In
particular, her shepherding of the ns2 simulator over many years, and the time
she spent on the test suite, so it was possible to use ns to exchange ideas
between researchers in a rigorous manner. She didn't care much what other
people thought - she was by far a more careful critic of her own work than any
reviewer of her papers. RIP Sally.

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ahmedhelmy
Thanks Mark for your comment. Reading this certainly brings back great
memories of working together. RIP Sally!

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tptacek
Favorite Sally Floyd paper:

[https://www.icir.org/floyd/papers/sync_94.pdf](https://www.icir.org/floyd/papers/sync_94.pdf)

A fun read. Sally Floyd, Craig Leres, Steve McCanne, Vern Paxson and of course
Van Jacobsen, the LBNL Network Research Group, were heroes of mine earlier in
my career. A terrible loss. Condolences to anyone here who know Floyd
personally.

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Animats
Van Jacobson explained it to us at Ford Aerospace around 1982 or so. Back then
it was UUCP mail that was synching up. Mailers forwarded mail every 15 minutes
or so, and they'd all synch up and try to call the same receiver at the same
time. If you do "send mail, then wait 15 minutes", that happens, because the
"send mail" part is variable time, longer if it's being held up by traffic.
You have to start the next cycle N minutes after the start of the previous
cycle, not the end, or you get strong synchronization.

Never knew Floyd, though.

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brohee
People that didn't understand or read her work gave us bufferbloat
([https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bloat/wiki/Introduction...](https://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/bloat/wiki/Introduction/)).
Her work is truly fundamental to a well functioning Internet.

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justicezyx
RIP

I guess Dr. Floyd's work is not that famous, but in large part, the work by
her and Van Jacobson unlocked the bandwidth potential of Internet. Without
their work, the Internet as we all know might progress slower with 2-3 years
setback.

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a11r
Dr. Floyd's papers provided a very clear exposition of the ideas, making them
very accessible to undergrads with minimal CS education. I would strongly
recommend them to anyone with an interest in the topics.

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ahmedhelmy
Sally will be greatly missed, for sure... I was fortunate to have worked with
her on the network simulator NS-2 team (VINT project) and met her several
times at USC, ISI and at UC Berkeley (and many times in online conferencing,
using the Mbone tools!), what a wonderful person she is, so calm and soft-
spoken. She helped implement TCP and RED in NS-2, along with Van Jacobson, Lee
Breslau, Steve McCanne and other established team members! She also worked
with Vern Paxon on Internet traffic characterization, ... a work that was
highly impactful and was integrated later into NS-2. She also gave her
insightful feedback and input to PIM-SM and the multicast project that I
worked on with Deborah Estrin and several other very esteemed researchers.
There is so much more to her life that cannot fit here. I learned a lot from
her publications, and from her personally when we had the opportunity to
interact.

She is inspiring and will remain so. Her contributions will last long after
her passing for sure!

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dtaht
I think I've read everything she ever wrote about congestion control. I'd
always wanted to meet her. :(

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NetOpWibby
What a dynamite gal.

