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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: Status of Canadian domain
Message-ID: <919@looking.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Aug-87 12:46:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.919
Posted: Mon Aug 24 12:46:04 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 25-Aug-87 01:03:58 EDT
References: <8708190102.AA05431@ephemeral.ai.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: can
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 38

In article <1263@van-bc.UUCP> sl@van-bc.UUCP (Stuart Lynne) writes:
>
>No, farther down the line, the probable method is a unique (world wide)
>number.
>
>The number would be unique and the sender would use hints to help mail
>servers find you.

Yukko.  No wonder there is distrust of computers by the general public.
Why on Earth would we want numbers when strings would serve the same purpose?

If a user already knows your "magic number"  then he is not trying to figure
out how to mail you.  He knows.

You are correct that there should be one unique, time invariant ID for
everybody, but god forbid that it be a number.

The whole point is that all the schemes should exist at once.  Some will be
very efficient routing-wise, and some will be less so.

The efficient ones will get used in any long term mail conversation, since
mailers will (perhaps invisibly) use them as reply addresses.

It's that all important first message that is important, and we want as many
naming schemes as possible to work.

Both geographical and organizational are good.  The only problem with
"organizational" is that there are too many organizations in the world
to have them in a top level domain.  You have to break it down a bit to
make it easier to understand and handle.  Sure something like AT&T is big
enough, but how about Joe's consulting?

For the long term you need a hierarchy to break things down, and geography is
the only one people already understand.

But please, NO NUMBERS
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473