[bind10-dev] command line syntax for bind10

[Paul Vixie]

shane asked me to post this note here after hearing what i had to say.

years ago i was a VAX/VMS system programmer and system administrator,
and i built and maintained several DECnet Phase IV and Phase V networks.
those networks are mostly dead now, having been rightly killed by TCP/IP.
however, the command line system interface used by those network tools
was good, and should be studied by us as we design one for BIND 10.

<http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/82final/decnetplus/ncl_ref.pdf> describes
the "Digital (DEC) Network Command Language" which was usable both in
scripts and by a readline-style command line utility.  it took some
getting used to, but once somebody gets used to it it's VERY powerful
and feels completely natural.  it's a declarative, loud, bossy language
and was well received by the commercial I.T. world at that time.

<http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-commands.html> shows
the same basic philosophy as applied to an SQL service.

in my original planning work for BIND 10 i envisioned a DNS economy
dominated by our tools and by our way of using those tools.  a strong,
loud, declarative command language is a necessary part of that.  even
though we'll be using some kind of XML (restful, or whatever) rather
than CMIP/CMOT as our back end channel, the front end syntax should
feel as much like DEC NCL (or SQL) as possible.

paul