microsoft / microsoft/demikernel
[inetstack] Retransmission Timeout Calculator uses Floating Point
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- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 1.2k
- Forks
- 151
- PR merge metrics
- No merged PRs in 30d
Description
Back in olden times, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and floating-point units were on a separate processor board (e.g., VAX 750), TCP/IP stacks did all of their retransmission timeout calculations using integer arithmetic, as it was significantly faster than using floating point. Our current implementation uses floating-point.
We should review whether this is a performance problem or not.
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Locate the inetstack retransmission-timeout calculator and any existing tests or benchmarks; first read how the current floating-point calculation is used. Measure whether it creates a meaningful performance cost and document the result, with an integer-arithmetic change and coverage only if the evidence supports it.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- networking, performance
- Issue type
- Refactor
- Difficulty
- 5/5
- Estimated time
- Over a week
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Needs clarification
- Newbie friendliness
- 25/100