Eat All You Can in an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet

In contrast to the efficiency-centric designs that are more prevalent today, we advocate a view of system design based on a holistic view of available resources. This view is embodied in what we call the Buffet principle: continue using additional resources as long as the marginal benefit is more than the marginal cost of using the resources. We illustrate through several examples how this seemingly obvious principle is not adhered to by many common designs and how its application can lead to qualitatively different and better performing designs. We also discuss the broad considerations that apply to designing systems that use the Buffet principle.