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From: Mikhail Teterin <mi@kot.ne.mediaone.net>
Message-Id: <199901242244.RAA04500@kot.ne.mediaone.net>
Subject: Re: sysctl oids (was: Re: kvm question)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95.990124140935.6880C-100000@current1.whistle.com> from Julian Elischer at "Jan 24, 1999 02:15:08 pm"
To: current@FreeBSD.ORG
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1999 17:44:55 -0500 (EST)
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Julian Elischer once stated:

=> Nonsense. There are plenty of contexts in which a number makes far
=> more sense than a name -- pretty much anything in any network stack
=> other than Chaosnet, for example. If any of us ever make good on the
=> threat of SNMP integration, having fixed numerical identifiers will
=> be a requirement.

=SNMP will require a translation layer anyhow.. numbers cannot and
=should not be used. They are not easily maintained in the face of
=multiple external modules being dynamically loadable.

=That is at least my opinion.. you may and do disagree. I guess you will
=say that numbers are just as dynamic, etc.etc. well I just think that
=in the REAL WORLD, as opposed to the theoretical world, names (which
=require no co-ordination between authors), are a better choice than
=numbers, which require some central naming authority.

Pardon my intrusion, but I strongly dislike the very thought about
my computer looking-up the same string more then once or twice. If it
counts -- I'd take a number over a string anytime anywhere other
then in a documentation.

	-mi

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