Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!lll-winken!uunet!lts!amanda From: amanda@lts.UUCP (Amanda Walker) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip Subject: Re: new terminal names Message-ID: <1107@lts.UUCP> Date: 10 Apr 89 18:18:14 GMT References: <8YAj6Yy00UoJ41ApYV@andrew.cmu.edu> <7080013@eecs.nwu.edu> Reply-To: amanda@lts.UUCP (Amanda Walker) Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation, Reston, VA Lines: 39 In article <7080013@eecs.nwu.edu>,ntgore@eecs.nwu.edu (Jacob Gore) writes: Is there any particular reason why we have to enumerate every piece of computer hardware in the world? Well, I think the general principle goes something along the lines of: Since, the world being as it is, it is often necessary or desirable for two pieces of hardware to be able to use information about each other in order to communicate. For terminals this is particularly necessary if any functinality greater than "glass teletype" is desired. Making this type of information available automatically (such as through a domain name server, the telnet TERMINAL-TYPE negotiation, Hesiod, etc.) results in decreased time and increased accuracy over the alternative of having users supply this information whenever it is needed. In fact, users may well not have this information readily available, if at all. 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? I can think of several reasons off-hand. The most practical one is for identifying special circumstances. For example, the FTP client in our Macintosh TCP/IP package uses this information to provide extended functionality (such as directory browsing and file size estimation) for hosts it "understands." It can make do without it, but taking advantage of it allows us to move the burden of system-specific knowledge from the user to the software. Network diagnostic programs can use this information to improve the intelligibility of their output. Programs such as mailers can use the well-known-socket information to predetermine whether or not a given type of service is available on a particular host. We don't, of course, *need* to enumerate all of this stuff, but it is often quite useful... -- Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation -- "A keyboard ... how quaint!" -- Scotty, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home