Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!ukma!david
From: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: routing in the user agent
Message-ID: <7461@g.ms.uky.edu>
Date: Mon, 12-Oct-87 01:17:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: g.7461
Posted: Mon Oct 12 01:17:52 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 13-Oct-87 01:34:23 EDT
References: <279@minya.UUCP>
Reply-To: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack)
Organization: U of Kentucky, Mathematical Sciences
Lines: 32
Keywords: bounced mail, rerouting

In article <279@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (jc) writes:
	[ Deleted quotation from someone describing their personal
	  algorithm for sending mail ... i.e. Look at the address
	  and determine where the site is, and re-write the address
	  appropriately.  All by hand. ]
>You know, there's an elegant solution to this sort of problem, exemplified
>by the way that Prolog resolves things.  What is needed is a user agent
>that will first try what it thinks is a "best" path, and then, when that
>fails, can be told "try again, with the next-best path".  This could be
>repeated until a good path is found, which could then be made the "best"
>path for the next time.

hmmm ... how are you intending to test the path?

You don't have the needed information on your machine.  NOBODY does.

The only information you have is the UUCP Project database, and that's
gauranteed to be at least 1 to 2 months out of date.

We can do this "try again until it works" algorithm of yours by hand
right now.  I do this quite often in fact (well, maybe a couple of
times a month -- more often than I really want tho').  You send the
mail, and if it bounces you forward the message through a different
route.

Obviously it's a good algorithm but I don't see the point of making
it "automatic" like you suggest.
-- 
<---- David Herron,  Local E-Mail Hack,  david@ms.uky.edu, david@ms.uky.csnet
<----                    {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET
<---- I thought that time was this neat invention that kept everything
<---- from happening at once.  Why doesn't this work in practice?