Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!think!ames!joyce!mordor!lll-tis!cwi.nl!piet
From: piet@cwi.nl (Piet Beertema)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway
Subject: Re: DRAFT/2: Recommendation for a Short Hand X.400 Address Notation
Message-ID: <8809131139.AA18046@sering.cwi.nl>
Date: 13 Sep 88 14:38:56 GMT
References: <5470*denise@priam.cern>
Sender: root@tis.llnl.gov
Distribution: inet
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 42
Approved: post-x400-gateway@tis.llnl.gov


	Note:
	  4. No distinction is made between upper and lower case although keywords 
	     in upper case and their values in lower case gives a clearer display.
Hard to maintain: having to present e.g. a name in lower-case-only,
as this suggests isn't acceptable. Rather change this note into:
  4. No distinction is made between upper and lower case; it is
     suggested though that keywords be given in upper case.

	  5. Space characters inside <value> are significant otherwise they are
	     used only for readability.
Well, yes, BUT: quite often it's impossible to tell whether a
white space on a business card is inter-character space or a
"real" space. But the only solution to that problem would be
to make spaces inside a value non-significant....


	Why use the recommended notation?
	---------------------------------
Yes, why??? That's the crucial question. I completely fail to
see the use of this all if it would set apart the academic
community as a "special entity" from the rest of the world,
where this community *does* and *has to* communicate with
the rest of the world and where this communication eventually
is to be based entirely on a standard accepted *worldwide*.
Sure, it's only a *recommended* rather than a *standard*
notation, but one with a limited scope, unknown outside the
academic community, perhaps causing confusion outside it
and certainly not accepted outside it; and it even remains
to be seen whether it will be accepted in the *whole* academic
(and research!) community. I doubt it.
Therefore, by adhering to this recommendation, putting your
X.400 address on your business card might well require the
*entire* "Definition of the Notation" to be put on (and to
fill!) the back of that business card.
And then, let's hope that this particular notation, if people
really use addresses represented that way [on business cards],
inside and outside the academic community, will be understood
by the X.400 mailers those people use. That too I doubt.


	Piet