Subject: Re: more thoughts on a set of TXT record clones

From: wayne <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2005 22:58:15 -0500

In <[email-masked]> John Levine <[email-masked]> writes:

> So if you're going to upgrade programs like bind and dig and nslookup
> and tinydns-data (from djbdns) to encode and decode a few new faux
> text types, why not do something like my XML trick so they can handle
> any new types and solve the problem once and for all?

Well, as I mentioned in another post, I don't care if you use xml,
asn.1 or java for the record description language, having things like
dig download it in order to parse/print an new record type scares the
heck out of me.  It would be like activeX for DNS.

-wayne

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From: Paul Vixie <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 11 Jun 2005 04:17:28 +0000

> > any new types and solve the problem once and for all?

the reason rdata isn't self-describing isn't because in 1980 nobody had
invented self-describing (ASN1-like or XML-like) data structures, nor is
it that pvm had never heard of doing stuff this way.

it's because there will always be devices who hope for simplicity in what
they have to receive and parse and store and forward.

true then, true now.  probably true always.  you want xml?  stick an A RR
or AAAA RR or both in the dns, use it to open a tcp session, and go get it.

> heck out of me.  It would be like activeX for DNS.

yea, verily.