From 63434f3762c5ba2abafe1585a247d8ad8e91ba59 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: rajames Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2026 20:41:55 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?docs:=20FABRIC-4=20=C2=A73=20as=20a=20null=20hy?= =?UTF-8?q?pothesis?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 --- docs/fabric/FABRIC-4.md | 23 +++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 23 insertions(+) diff --git a/docs/fabric/FABRIC-4.md b/docs/fabric/FABRIC-4.md index 12aa1951..da481a53 100644 --- a/docs/fabric/FABRIC-4.md +++ b/docs/fabric/FABRIC-4.md @@ -126,6 +126,29 @@ Stadium, `FABRIC-0.md`); K conserved, not sampled. **The question he will answer:** is there any advantage to this over a conventional OS? +**As a null hypothesis** (phrased at his request, 2026-10-16; a starting form, to be sharpened +before any experiment): + +> **H0:** Delivering information to a computing element as *state* -- a fact that persists where +> the element will take it, when it has the means to -- confers **no advantage** over delivering +> it as a *moment* -- an event the element must act on at the instant it arrives, with whatever +> resources it has then -- as a conventional OS does with signals and interrupts. +> +> **H1:** Delivery as state gives a measurable advantage on at least one of the measures below, +> at a cost in the others that does not outweigh it. + +Measures that would decide it, each the same for both forms on the same workload: +1. **Loss:** events delivered that never took effect (believed but not acted on, coalesced, + dropped). +2. **Corruption under pressure:** faults, and state lost to them, when the receiver is short of the + resources the event needs (here: stack depth; in general memory, time). +3. **Variance:** the coefficient of variation of outcomes over repeated runs, and agreement of + state hashes across machines. +4. **Cost:** latency from delivery to effect, and the memory held by facts waiting. + +H0 is rejected if state is better on 1, 2 or 3 beyond the measurement floor, with 4 within a bound +fixed before the run. It stands if not. Either result is a result. + **Contrasts noted in the conversation, as starting points, not conclusions:** - A conventional OS delivers much information as moments: Unix signals run a handler at whatever instant they land, on the interrupted code's stack, may call only async-signal-safe functions,