Path: utzoo!censor!geac!yunexus!davecb From: davecb@yunexus.YorkU.CA (David Collier-Brown) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains Subject: Re: CS top-level domain and its impact on the UK? Message-ID: <13240@yunexus.YorkU.CA> Date: 29 Jul 90 21:38:39 GMT References: <1990Jul23.065901.8741@ifi.uio.no> <1990Jul28.235750.20841@kth.se> <1990Jul29.103214.14864@robobar.co.uk> Organization: York U. Computing Services Lines: 46 ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) writes: >The kludge of trying to accept addresses either way round globally >is just a bad kludge. But it did mean that no decisions needed to be >made, I guess. Now the kludge is starting to get strained, perhaps >someone will have to do something. I must admit I'm glad it's not me. I should note that one of the causes of this situation is the non-uniqueness of the syntax: both overload the characters "." and "@" for similar purposes, but use them in a different namespace. We've become all too used to distinguishing namespaces by their syntax (":" and "!"-based, notably) and tend to be sucessfully misled... Compare this to the problem of structures in typed programming languages: struct fixed_dns_like_t { char *host, *subdomain, *domain, *toplevelDomain; } Murrican; struct fixed_janet_like_t { char *toplevelDomain; *domain, *subdomain, *host; } UKnian; If I saw the above in a "C" program, I'd wonder about 1) the programmer's sense of humor, and 2) the compiler that managed to disambiguate it, and 3) portability to the usual compilers elsewhere. Then I'd start wondering about funding a rewrite (:-)) Seriously, though, the heuristic that allows the two forms to coexist needs to be **very** widely promulgated, and the cross-registration that allows it be mandated for a fixed period, during which no-one in the internet would be allowed to register uk.ac.*.cs On second thought, add a (:-)) to that too: I can't quite take it seriously! --dave -- David Collier-Brown, | davecb@Nexus.YorkU.CA, ...!yunexus!davecb or 72 Abitibi Ave., | {toronto area...}lethe!dave Willowdale, Ontario, | "And the next 8 man-months came up like CANADA. 416-223-8968 | thunder across the bay" --david kipling