Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!AI.AI.MIT.EDU!Mly
From: Mly@AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Mlynarik)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: HINFO
Message-ID: <19890410115716.4.MLY@ISABEL-PERON.AI.MIT.EDU>
Date: 10 Apr 89 11:57:00 GMT
References: <7080013@eecs.nwu.edu>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 29


    Date: 9 Apr 89 22:00:01 GMT
    From: mailrus!shadooby!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!gore@bbn.com  (Jacob Gore)

    Is there any particular reason why we have to enumerate every piece of
    computer hardware in the world?

    For instance, the domain application wants host type and OS type for the
    hosts on which the domain's nameservers run.  What on Earth for?

Re host type:

How else does my machine I determine what pathname syntax to use for the
host's filesystem?

How else can my machine determine how to interpret the idiosyncratic
results returned by such semi-standard things as FTP LIST?

How else can my machine attempt to try to compensate in advance for
well-known (but never repaired) bugs in implementations of
specific network protocols under specific operating systems?




TCP interconnectivity is increasingly a "least common denominator"
effort at the level of what various broken (usually unix)
implementations -implement-, rather than what the specifications
-specify-.