Date: Sat, 27 Sep 1997 21:27:02 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: r-cmds and DNS and /etc/host.conf Message-ID: <199709272127.OAA11524@usr08.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <19970927143934.ZN26834@uriah.heep.sax.de> from "J Wunsch" at Sep 27, 97 02:39:34 pm
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> > The easy answer to this is that there isn't a Motif-based listbox > > setup for the nameserver code, where you just fill in the names you > > want, and it does the rest. > > > > The less easy answer is "it's hard enough to set up that it's not > > worth doing for most people". > > Writing a Motif-based program would take a tremenduous amount of time. If you make it grammar-based, you write it once, and it works for a crudload of command line configurators that know how to be run over pipes. Like disk partition tools, install tools, etc.. So you can pretty much amortize the cost over a hell of a lot of code. > Why do it if the basic nameserver setup takes about 10 minutes? (No, > not the caching-only server, this one only takes a couple of minutes.) Each. Time. > I've seen the listbox-style cr*p that ships with some M$ operating > system. The listboxes look nice, are terrible to use Speak for yourself. 99.99% of the computer users in the world prefer that type of interface -- which is why they are MS users instead of UNIX users. UNIX users are, as a class, intellectual elitists who don't undertand that the average I.Q. is 100 because that is how a 100 I.Q. is defined. And as a class, they are unprepared to make the necessary allowances. There's a good reason a moron can run Microsoft OS's: so that that morons won't be too intimidated to buy them. > (it's a pain in the rear to add all the same standard MX records to > each host using this kind of `editor'), This is why you connect to www.microsoft.com, go to the download area, and pull down the configuration template mechanism, if you're an IS person who needs to set up a lot of machines. For non-MX (and other ancillary network configuration) type stuff, you use DHCP *OR* you use a non-TCP/IP protocol to avoid name-number data translation altogether. Normal mortals don't like TCP/IP because it bears no resemblance to reality. I don't have to name my car to remember where I parked it. > but the vendor of that cr*p didn't get the underlying nameserver > working correctly at all. (For example, the server never hands out > authoritative answers, even if it is for sure an authoritative server.) This may be intentional laxity. In their opinion, you are supposed to buy an NT server and configure WINS naming instead of DNS. > And finally, using the shicky-micky listbox interface usually screws > the nameserver setup at all. But it's easy. It's a hell of a lot easier than running an editor and shelling out to a man page every five minutes, or worse, shelling out money for an O'Reilly book, which is made necessary by all the bogus complexity associated with the task, and trying to balance the thing on your knees while typing in secret code words. For something designed by a bunch of bonifide computer scientists, you'd think they would be able to grasp the concept of putting configuration databases in third normal form. 8-|. Regards, Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.
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