do disk drives dream of buffer cache hits?
G.E. Moore, in his book Principia Ethica, examines the popular view of ethics that deals with what we ought to do as well as using ethics to cover the general inquiry: what is good? This paper utilises Moore's view of Ethics to examine computer systems performance. Moore asserts that good in itself is indefinable. It is argued in this report that, although we describe computer systems as good (or bad) a computer system cannot be good in itself, rather a means to good! In terms of what we ought to do this paper looks at what actions (would) bring about good computer system performance according to computer science and engineering literature. In particular we look at duties, responsibilities and to do what is right in terms of system administration, design and usage. We further argue that in order to first make ethical observations with respect computer system performance and then apply them, requires technical knowledge which is typically limited to industry specialists and experts.
ethics performance duty unix