In a perfect world, network engineers and architects who design and manage networks should focus on what they want the network to achieve instead of the device-level interactions. In my first job as an intern for a local ISP, wide-eyed and excited, my first assignment was to install a router on a customer's site to turn up their fractional frame relay link (remember those?). How would I do that? I asked. I was handed a standard operating procedure for turning up frame relay links. I went to the customer site, blindly typed in the commands, and looked at the green lights flashing, then happily packed my bag and patted myself on the back for a job well done. As exciting as that first assignment was, I did not fully understand what I was doing. I was simply following instructions without thinking about the implication of the commands I was typing in. How...