🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1TauwB3w165w@willard.atl.ga.us> dawson@willard.atl.ga.us (Willard Dawson) writes:
>> .UUCP sucks because implies that a particular transport is being
>> used.  Names, addresses, routes, and transports are all distinct
>> characteristics.

>... unique to each different networking system in use.  *Not* every
>networking system in the Universe uses the FQDN business.  This is
>Karl_Kleinpaste's point?

But what is this concept of a "networking system"?  I consider all
of the addresses that I've had to be part of the same "networking
system".  The best word I know for it is "The Matrix".

I've had accounts on machines that were connected to The Internet
with TCP/IP, ACSnet with SUN-III or MHSnet, other sites with UUCP, 
APANA with UUCP or often a combination of the above.  I could send
mail from one to the other.  If I can get them to work, I can soon
add DECnet and All-In-1 to the list.

If I want to send mail to a particular machine, I don't want to have
to care whether it connects to the world with UUCP or TCP/IP or avian
carrier.  And I certainly don't want to change my address book because
they decided to use SLIP instead of UUCP as a transport to their link.

If UUCP is so different to every other transport layer in the world
that it causes sites which use it to be a separate "networking system"
that cannot sensibly correspond with other networking systems, then I
don't think it's doing a very good job.

My philosophy is that where possible the transport layer used between
my and my neighbor should be invisible to everyone except ourselves.

-- 
<David.Keegel@apana.org.au>  <werple!tuple!boombox!djk>  Tel: +61 3 593-1460
aka: djk@boombox.apana.org.au, djk@cs.mu.oz.au.  Formerly: djk@bby.com.au.