BIND version (was Re: DNS & BIND (O'Reilly book) )

[Jim Reid]

>>>>> "Garrett" == Garrett  <midtowng at deja.com> writes:

    Garrett>    BIND 8 is more proven and stable than BIND 9.

This is somewhat misleading. True, BIND8 has been around for much
longer, but BIND9 is far, far superior. The internals of BIND8 are, to
be polite, disgustingly messy. BIND9 has a clean coding style and
benefits from a consistent design and being developed by one cohesive
group of people. BIND[48] is a collection of hacks and kludges brought
to you by a cast of thousands. [BIND9 is also designed for the world
DNS lives in today - huge zones, DNSSEC, IPv6, etc - rather than the
one of ~15 years ago.] Since BIND9 is a total rewrite, it does not
suffer from the legacy heritage of BIND4 and BIND8. The way BIND9 has
been designed and written - programming by contract, assertion
checking, etc - means there should be far fewer problems with the code.
BIND9 is also much more scrupulous about conforming to the protocol
standards.

    Garrett> You might want to just set up a BIND 8 server.

This would be unwise. If someone is going to set up a name server from
scratch, they might as well do it with current software: BIND9. This
applies as a rule of thumb: In general, always use up to date
software. It's particularly true for BIND. BIND8 is in the departure
lounge. BIND4 is dead. BIND9 is the way forward.