Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bunny!jwg1 From: jwg1@bunny.UUCP (James W. Gish) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: routing in the user agent Message-ID: <5038@bunny.UUCP> Date: Thu, 1-Oct-87 12:27:53 EDT Article-I.D.: bunny.5038 Posted: Thu Oct 1 12:27:53 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 5-Oct-87 07:25:31 EDT References: <7333@e.ms.uky.edu> <1631@umix.cc.umich.edu> <1599@ukecc.engr.uky.edu> <101@dorsai.ics.hawaii.edu> Reply-To: jwg1@bunny.UUCP (James W. Gish) Organization: GTE Laboratories, Waltham, MA Lines: 40 In article <101@dorsai.ics.hawaii.edu> torben@dorsai.ics.hawaii.edu (Torben N. Nielsen) writes: >Users should be concerned with addresses and not routes. Do you want to tell the >postman the exact path he should take in order to deliver your letter? I think >not. Teach the postman how to do do routing, tell him the address and leave it >at that. I agree totally that users should not be concerned with routes. However I strongly believe that in general they should not be concerned with addresses either. That's what computers are for. I have worked in office automation and on electronic mail systems for a long time now and one mistake I find many people making is trying to make automated systems mimic manual systems, e.g. the "desktop" analogy or the "postman" analogy. While I do see some merit in such familiar notions to help educate novice users and make the transition to automation easier, I think that we often don't end up with the best systems by adhering to the structures of manual systems. But I digress... What I want to be able to do when I sit down to send mail is enter what in the X.400 standard is referred to as a "user friendly" name, e.g. "Jim Gish" or "Jim Gish @ GTE Labs." I don't give a hoot, nor should I, that a user's login id is jwg1 and that his host is bunny. Now I know that this is a complex technical, organizational and like it or not political problem that involves setting up naming domains and deciding how and what information is to be distributed, how name resolution is handled etc., but it is within our technical abilities to design and contruct distributed Directory Service Agents (DSAs). I also want public distributed nested distribution lists, private directories, and more. There is lots of good work being done in the standards community (see for example the CCITT x.ds work now in "progress"). However, there are many problems to be solved and too few people working on them. Let's get to work to free ourselves from the user having to know all the address gobbledygook now required to send a message. (flame over) -- Jim Gish GTE Laboratories, Inc., Waltham, MA CSNET: jwg1@gte-labs UUCP: ..!harvard!bunny!jwg1