Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!xyplex.com!stewart
From: stewart@xyplex.com (Bob Stewart)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Can subnets be separated by another net?
Message-ID: <9007121800.AA01850@xap>
Date: 12 Jul 90 15:00:06 GMT
References: <9007121332.AA02890@chiya.bellcore.com>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 30

Paul Tsuchiya writes:

>Also, ISO-IP addresses are the ultimate in administratively hierarchical
>address assignment, but have a long ways to go still in having a
>topologically meaningful hierarchical address.  But I'm working on them
>too.

Seems to me that imbedding topological meaning in an address is not
necessarily a good idea.  That implies that as I move my portable around the
network (from hotel to hotel, or, worse yet, on a cross country trip with a
mobile phone), its address has to change.  We have that problem now with SLIP
connections.  A name service could track the change so you could always reach
me by name, but the more I move the more I have to change the name mapping,
and such mappings usually don't appreciate being changed very much.

*I*n *M*y *H*umble *O*pinion, hierarchical administration for initial address
assignment works nicely, such as with Domain Name Service or Ethernet global
addresses, but should really be independent of routing.  Of course, flat
addresses don't offer any built-in efficiencies for finding the right
neighborhood, like IP addresses do now...

Tradeoffs, tradeoffs, always tradeoffs.  Why can't there just be a right
answer? 

	Bob

-----------
Bob Stewart (rlstewart@eng.xyplex.com)
Xyplex, Boxborough, Massachusetts
(508) 264-9900