stevenm (11/07/82)
I have been perusing my database of UUCP network names and places
this evening, and I have come across many manifestations of a
syndrome which I thought had been virtually quashed. I am distraught.
The syndrome which I am referring to is the tendency that some sites
have to include UPPER-CASE characters in their site names. I have
seen a handful of sites at AMPEX Corp, and a few elsewhere which
have uppercase names.
At the risk of sounding like I am flaming, let me state a simple fact:
MODERN MAILERS WILL NOT HANDLE PATHNAMES AND SITENAMES WHICH CONTAIN
CASE DISTINCTIONS. MANY SITES CANNOT REPLY TO SITES WHO HAVE UPPER-
CASE NAMES.
Let me elaborate. The new ARPAnet mail standard, RFC822, states
(somewhere, I'm not going to look it up) that site names (and user
names for that matter) may be **stated** by a sender in either case.
>From that point on - NO case distinction is made by mailer programs.
This is true of our RFC822 mailer at Tek. If I mail to
'teklabs!ucbvax!abcXYZ!foobar'
then my mailer immediately turns it into
'teklabs!decvax!abcxyz!foobar'
While it is true that neither teklabs nor ucbvax really care about this,
when the message gets to (e.g.) decvax, decvax's UUCP will say 'I don't
know about any machine named 'abcxyz'' and throw the whole thing on
the floor.
So, tell your friends, tell your neighbours, tell your local system
programmer - NO UPPERCASE NAMES IN SYSTEM NAMES. Uppercase characters
hurt my eyes, anyway.
S. McGeady
Tektronix, Inc.