# Two Perspectives on the End-to-End Principle

DevFeed: [Two Perspectives on the End-to-End Principle](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/two-perspectives-on-the-end-to-end-principle-21951.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.nelhage.com/post/end-to-end-principle/>)

Author: Nelson Elhage

Published: 2017-06-11T20:42:01Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Nelson Elhage](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nelson-elhage.md>)

Topics: [systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/systems.md>), [Architecture & Design](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/architecture-design.md>), [Complex Systems](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/complex-systems.md>), [Software Engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/software-engineering.md>)

Tags: [argument](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/argument.md>), [complex-systems](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/complex-systems.md>), [perspectives](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/perspectives.md>), [software-design](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-design.md>), [systems-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/systems-engineering.md>)

## AI overview

The article reflects on the end-to-end principle as a general systems-design heuristic. It explains that functions such as correctness may be better handled at the ends of a system rather than at every lower-level interface, and questions whether complex systems can be made correct simply by composing correct subsystems.

## Source excerpt

Back when I was an undergraduate, as part of a class called "Computer Systems Engineering", we read numerous classic papers of systems design. I enjoyed and learned a great deal from many of these papers, but one that paper that has stuck with me in particular was Saltzer et al's "End-to-End Arguments in Systems Design". The paper is a very general tract on systems design - it does explore several examples of concrete systems or applications, but it ultimately expounds upon the end-to-end principle as a perspective or design heuristic that can apply to virtually any system design.