Message for Bind-users

[Kevin Darcy]

Jim Reid wrote:

> >>>>> "Kevin" == Kevin Darcy <kcd at daimlerchrysler.com> writes:
>
>     Kevin> Well, we don't *need* DNS at all: everyone could just use
>     Kevin> dot-notation IP addresses, or, for that matter, strings of
>     Kevin> 1's and 0's. DNS, and underscores, enhance the
>     Kevin> human/computer interface, or at least are perceived to by
>     Kevin> many of the humans who use the interface.
>
> That doesn't work either unless it gets formalised by a generally
> agreed protocol. If I was to henceforce declare that the letter 0
> represented a binary 1 and 1 represented binary 0, I could do it.
> That doesn't mean the rest of the world should follow suit, even if I
> wanted them to. (Or use FOOBAR to denote 1 and foobar to denote 0.)  I
> chose these ridiculous examples for exaggeration to show what happens
> when people unlilaterally invent their own conventions and refuse to
> follow defined, generally agreed and implemented standards. Although
> they're unworkable, the above examples are no less silly than
> violating RFC1123 and using underscores in hostnames. How many other
> parts of RFC1123 can someone choose to ignore or overrule?

I'm not suggesting that people violate the standards. I'm suggesting that
certain standards, or parts of standards, are obsolete and arbitrary and
unnecessarily restrictive, and that we should a) just simply admit this
instead of making up bullshit justifications for them and b) change them
if we can.


- Kevin