Pete Resnick wrote:
> In 974, "normal processing" involves
finding the "address" associated with the domain. It does not mention A
records at all. So, for an IPv6 client, following the 974 algorithm
pretty clearly involves looking up AAAA records.
Ok, I will try to keep it short and non-argumentative but to just hope
to supply some advocating reason here.
So by virtue of the fact that 974 was not specific, in hindsight you are
suggesting it left it open-ended for any future record type associated
with the domain?
When was 974 written? 1986?
When was IPv6 invented? 1991?
When was AAAA invented? 1995?
Come on Pete. Clearly the mindset of the era was based on MX names of
the time - A records, possibly CNAME records too.
If there was the intent to keep it open ended, which I see no semantics
for such ideas, I don't think we can blame anyone for how things work now.
The fact is, given any point in the the timeline of software
development, the software was trained to only use what was known at up
to the point in time. Clearly, specifically for a AAAA, it would of
meant a technology that that would not exist for 10 more years for a
entirely new set of communications invented 5 years earlier.
Guess what? it is still being fined tuned 17 years later!
Even then, I think it is still open-ended today - when the SOFTWARE is
made to be aware of it.
I can see your point about 974 if we were talking about different names
under same communication layers. So if some new RR was invented and it
was plug and play with the SAME software, then that would of been
incredible.
That is not what we have here with IPv6.
This all reminds me of the old Fidonet day with mailers which were
strictly RS232 at first. The nodelist akin to the DNS today had
telephone numbers. IP nodes was even a consideration at first, but
people were exploring with IP and hostnames using spawned FTP and SMTP
jobs event driven IP connections
When TCP/IP became a new growing feasible consideration, i.e, more nodes
were able to afford PPP connections, new handshaking methods (IEMSI)
file/data exchange protocol methods were invented specially designed for
the internet. The nodelist was enhanced to better define IP addresses
and nodes in place of telephone numbers.
However, only a few FTN mailers were enhanced to support it i.e,
BinkleyTerm. Well, obviously old mailers had no way to communicate with
IP nodes.
If there was any irony here, the developer vs admin debates to RELAX the
standards to allow for new protocols was a major philosophical conflict
that did not help Fidonet and IMV helped in it demise.
Of course that isn't going to happen here, but it certainly doesn't help
with rate of progress we lack here.
--
Sincerely
Hector Santos, CTO
http://www.santronics.com
http://santronics.blogspot.com