Life in the Fast Lane: Viewed from the Confluence Lens
The most striking ideas in systems are abstractions such as virtual memory, sockets, or packet scheduling. Algorithmics is the servant of abstraction, allowing the performance of the system to approach that of the underlying hardware. I survey the trajectory of network algorithmics, starting with a focus on speed and scale in the 1990s to measurement and security in the 2000s, using what I call the confluence lens.
 Confluence sees interdisciplinary work as a merger of two or more disciplines made compelling by an inflection point in the real world, while also producing genuinely transformed ideas. I attempt to show that Network Algorithmics represented a confluence in the 1990s between computer systems, algorithms, and networking. I suggest confluence diagrams as a means to identify future interdisciplinary opportunities, and describe the emerging field of network verification as a new confluence between networking and programming languages.