Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz.au!csc!ccadfa!cjsv@cs.adfa.oz.au
From: cjsv@cs.adfa.oz.au (Christopher JS Vance)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Regarding earlier post on domains.
Summary: do it properly or suffer
Message-ID: <1163@ccadfa.adfa.oz.au>
Date: 6 Mar 90 22:59:57 GMT
References: <75@dynasys.UUCP>
Sender: cjsv@ccadfa.adfa.oz.au
Organization: Computer Science, Univ. of NSW, ADFA Canberra, Australia
Lines: 57

In article <75@dynasys.UUCP> jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher) writes:
.> 				Question:  Why in the world would I want
.> to have mail sent to another site just so that site could send it to
.> me?  If, for example, my domain is "dynasys.com", what is the advantage
.> of having my mail sent to the entity that takes care of the "com" domain
.> only to then be sent to me?

You've missed the point -- your mail does not *go* to the entity
managing .COM, but an Internet site will *ask* the entity managing .COM
where your mail should be sent (unless it already knows).  Since the
Internet site is permanently connected to the name server for .COM, it
will get an immediate answer (assuming everything's working :-)), and
wil then send your mail to the (other) Internet site which is nominated
as your MX forwarder.  It's not a roundabout thing, but the best that
can be done, since you can't expect an Internet site to know anything
but Internet routing.  Your MX forwarder is then responsible for getting
your mail to you using whatever means your have agreed with them. 

In fact, your mail is *more* likely to make hops to several sites on the
way (rather than going directly) if you use UUCP.

.> 				Especially when we have smart mailers that
.> will route the stuff directly to me.

And how does the smart mailer know how to route stuff to you? Somebody
has to *tell* it how to get to you.  The UUCP maps are one way, but
nobody on the Internet can be expected to even look at them.  The other
way is to have a registered domain, an MX forwarder on the Internet, and
an agreement with your forwarder how they should forward your mail.  But
then, nobody *off* the Internet can be expected to use your MX
information. 

The best way is to register your domain officially, get an MX forwarder,
and then (*only then*) put your domain information into the UUCP maps.  That
way people in both worlds can talk to you and use the same address for you.

.> 					  After reading the RFC and asking
.> all these questions, domains do not seem to be the great thing that many
.> are making them out to be.

The whole point of domains is to reduce the amount of information needed
to work out how to get to you.  Last time I checked, there were about
26000 records in 37 top level Internet domains, which doesn't include
any detail internal to second or lower level domains -- e.g., we know
UU.NET exists, but not what's inside that domain, and certainly not any
detail about UUNET.UU.NET.  There are too many machines around to use
anything *but* domains.  Besides, if everyone had to choose a name
unique in 7 or 8 characters, rather than using domains, you'd probably
have to call yourself g6h4fyq instead of dynasys, since that name would
have been gone a long time ago. 

Would you like to have to wade through a single telephone directory for the
whole of North America because the Phone Company decided to make everybody
use 10-digit dialling and to stop treating your Area Code as a domain?

-- 
Christopher