peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (07/12/90)
In article <1585@merlin.bhpmrl.oz.au> ianh@bhpmrl.oz.au (Ian Hoyle) writes: > bhp = bhp keylink = /C=AU/ADMD=TELEMEMO/O=BHP/G=BHP/S=MELBOURNE/@murtoa THAT's what the famous X.400 addresses look like? This unreadable gibberish is supposed to be a universal standard for E-mail addressing? I think I prefer "frog!wasp::joe%bee.bitnet@toad.org". -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.ferranti.com>
barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (07/17/90)
In article <P2M42+@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <1585@merlin.bhpmrl.oz.au> ianh@bhpmrl.oz.au (Ian Hoyle) writes: >> bhp = bhp keylink = /C=AU/ADMD=TELEMEMO/O=BHP/G=BHP/S=MELBOURNE/@murtoa >THAT's what the famous X.400 addresses look like? Not really. Since X.400 is a binary, not character, protocol, its addresses are binary data structures. An X.400 address is a property list, containing attributes such as geographic location, full name, and company name (i.e. the same kinds of things one uses to address postal mail), as well as computer-oriented attributes such as the names of the network and computer. That gibberish is a compact textual representation of X.400, suitable for storage in textual databases such as the Unix aliases file, or for use when encapsulating X.400 mail in a textual mail environment such as SMTP/RFC822. The days are long gone when we should expect ordinary users to type "addresses" into their mail system user interfaces. The actual form that the user sees will depend on their mail system and its general user interaction style. A simple interface would display "Country:", "Last name:", "Computer name:", etc. prompts (with suitable defaults, of course). On a windowed system the attributes to be filled in would be chosen out of a menu or the user might fill in a dialogue. The important attribute of these interfaces is that the attribute names would be displayed in a natural language, not some computer abbreviation; e.g., what's represented as "C=AU" above would be displayed or entered as "Country: Australia". -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (07/20/90)
In article <40713@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: > The days are long gone when we should expect ordinary users to type > "addresses" into their mail system user interfaces. Why? People routinely key in phone numbers, and write addresses out by hand on envelopes. If the presented form of an address can change so radically what does one put on one's business card? I really don't see why E-mail addresses need be any more complex than phone-numbers, or street addresses at the worst. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.ferranti.com>
barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (07/22/90)
In article <J.R4CDA@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <40713@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: >> The days are long gone when we should expect ordinary users to type >> "addresses" into their mail system user interfaces. >I really don't see why E-mail addresses need be any more complex than >phone-numbers, or street addresses at the worst. Because email addresses have to be processed by computers, and used for looking up information in a worldwide distributed database, and intended to specify a particular person and even a specific choice of the roles the person plays. On the other hand, street addresses are processed by humans. And phone numbers don't get you to a particular person, they just get you to a phone -- you still have to ask whoever answers "May I speak to so-and-so?". -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
tron@tolerant.com (Ron Karr) (07/22/90)
In article <40888@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: >Because email addresses have to be processed by computers, and used for >looking up information in a worldwide distributed database, and intended to >specify a particular person and even a specific choice of the roles the >person plays. > >On the other hand, street addresses are processed by humans. And phone >numbers don't get you to a particular person, they just get you to a phone >-- you still have to ask whoever answers "May I speak to so-and-so?". Just because a computer is going to process an address doesn't mean that the address should suddenly become more complicated. There is a great deal of both versatility AND compactness in the local-part@domain notation. I can use my full name: Ronald.S.Karr@VERITAS.COM I could (if the US domain were organized correctly) use something like: Ronald.S.Karr@VERITAS.CA.US to get the same basic information that one would find in regular US-mail addresses. But some things that you certainly get that is more difficult to get with the X.400 addresses that I have seen are: o the ability to remember an address, because it is simple o the ability to store large number of addresses in a compact and readable format o the ability to tell somebody a concise address over, say, a voice telephone connection to another human being. But realistically, I don't want to be required to use a prompting or windowing interface just to be able to enter E-mail addresses. I want to be able to type them, perhaps even in large numbers, on my command line. -- tron |-<=>-| ARPAnet: tolsoft!tron@apple.com tron@tolerant.com UUCPnet: {amdahl,apple,hoptoad}!tolsoft!tron
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (07/22/90)
In article <40888@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: > In article <J.R4CDA@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > >In article <40713@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: > >> The days are long gone when we should expect ordinary users to type > >> "addresses" into their mail system user interfaces. > >I really don't see why E-mail addresses need be any more complex than > >phone-numbers, or street addresses at the worst. > Because email addresses have to be processed by computers, and used for > looking up information in a worldwide distributed database, and intended to > specify a particular person and even a specific choice of the roles the > person plays. What is a "person" or "role" in the context of a mail system? It's just a mailbox. A "container" that messages are put in. Whether it's "peter@ferranti.com" or "Postmaster@ferranti.com" it still gets to me. > On the other hand, street addresses are processed by humans. Right, and this allows them to be *more complex* than prone numbers or email addresses. Computers need a simpler designation for a mailbox: they're not very good at the sort of free association needed to deliver mail to "MOBY, HOUSTON, TEXAS" to a particular radio personality. > And phone > numbers don't get you to a particular person, they just get you to a phone > -- you still have to ask whoever answers "May I speak to so-and-so?". And email doesn't get you to a particular person, either. It just gets you to a mailbox. And that's true for UUCP path mail, DNS mail, or X.400 mail. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` <peter@ficc.ferranti.com>
tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (07/23/90)
In article <40897@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: >Addresses like this are OK for computer-literate email users, but ordinary >people should be able to type addresses similar to the ones they use on >ordinary correspondence. > >Given current email addressing technology, how would you send email to the >VP of Marketing of Thinking Machines Corporation, not knowing his name, >login name, nor the domain name of our computer? RFC-822 addresses are >fine for putting on business cards, but they're hard to generate without >being told. Back to the telephone analogy. How would you CALL the VP of Marketing at Thinking Machines Corporation, without knowing the number? You'd ask Directory Assistance. (In fact you'd have to know where TMC was first, so you'd have the proper area code. To this extent the phone network is also less than perfect! When I'm stymied, I call 800 D.A. on the off chance that the company has a toll free number of some kind. It's usually some sales rep who can't transfer me to the person I want, but they DO tend to know the main number.) What the Net needs is Directory Assistance -- an automated entity to ask for machine addresses. To: assist@assist.net From: jschmoe@crudbox.com (Joe Schmoe) thinking To: jschmoe@crudbox.com From: assist@assist.net (Network Directory Assistance) You asked for: thinking There are 2 matching entries. NAME: Thinking Machines Corporation. LOCATION: Cambridge, MA USA DOMAIN: think.com CONTACT: postmaster@think.com DATE: Mon Jul 23 11:31:56 EDT 1990 NOTES: Development machine; UUCP (uunet!think), SMTP, MMDF NAME: Institute of Holistic Thinking LOCATION: Granola, CA USA DOMAIN: iht.org CONTACT: like_wow@iht.org DATE: Mon Sep 26 03:19:13 EDT 1988 NOTES: Hey man, like, meat is murder. -- "Of course, this is a, this is a Hunt, you |*==| Tom Neff will -- that will uncover a lot of things. |===| tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM You open that scab, there's a hell of a lot of things... This involves these Cubans, Hunt, and a lot of hanky-panky that we have nothing to do with ourselves." -- RN 6/23/72
barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (07/23/90)
In article <1990Jul22.123110.1198@tolerant.com> tron@tolsoft.UUCP (Ron Karr,,439,) writes: >Just because a computer is going to process an address doesn't mean that >the address should suddenly become more complicated. There is a great >deal of both versatility AND compactness in the > > local-part@domain Addresses like this are OK for computer-literate email users, but ordinary people should be able to type addresses similar to the ones they use on ordinary correspondence. Given current email addressing technology, how would you send email to the VP of Marketing of Thinking Machines Corporation, not knowing his name, login name, nor the domain name of our computer? RFC-822 addresses are fine for putting on business cards, but they're hard to generate without being told. >But some things that you certainly get that is more difficult to get with >the X.400 addresses that I have seen are: > > o the ability to remember an address, because it is simple But not figure them out without asking someone. Also, I'm not sure my mother would consider addresses of the form "user@frobitz.athena.mit.edu" easy to remember (I had a hard time teaching her how to use MacWrite). > o the ability to store large number of addresses in a compact and > readable format No argument there. The compact form isn't very readable and the readable form isn't very compact. > o the ability to tell somebody a concise address over, say, a > voice telephone connection to another human being. X.400 permits the sender to specify as many of the recipient's attributes as he knows and wants to include. If you know the name of the computer and the recipient's login name (or mail alias) you can specify this. In fact, I believe most of the X.400 systems in production use only support such addresses, since the directory services are not available yet on a large scale. The abbreviated syntax would be something like "USER=local-part/DOMAIN=domain". So, when you're putting an address on a business card or telling them over the phone you can give them the minimally sufficent set of attributes they need. >But realistically, I don't want to be required to use a prompting or >windowing interface just to be able to enter E-mail addresses. I want >to be able to type them, perhaps even in large numbers, on my command >line. Agreed. But we shouldn't preclude such interfaces, either, since they are appropriate for many users. -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (07/24/90)
In article <40897@think.Think.COM> barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: > Given current email addressing technology, how would you send email to the > VP of Marketing of Thinking Machines Corporation, not knowing his name, > login name, nor the domain name of our computer? How would you send physical mail to this person? You have to look up Thinking Machines Corporation in a directory somewhere. The same is true of electronic mail. As for the individual's identity, that's going to need human interaction to send it to the right slot (Is that VP of Marketing, VP of Sales, or what? Different companies have different sets of titles), so you send it to Postmaster at the listed site and let him figure out who is meant. If Email is important enough that the VP of marketing is available, then it'll work. If not, you're lost either way. How would you use X.400 to address the VP of Marketing at Thinking Machines Corporation? OK, how would you use it to address the SPE for UPL at Ferranti? What's an SPE? What does UPL mean in this context? I'm not going to tell you... surely X.400 can figure that out. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` <peter@ficc.ferranti.com>
barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin) (07/24/90)
In article <15691@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes: >What the Net needs is Directory Assistance -- an automated entity to >ask for machine addresses. OK, supposing we implement an online Directory Assistance, we'd have to define a query protocol (in your example, email was the transport mechanism). There would have to be a syntax for writing the queries. It could be an encoding of something like SQL: SELECT ADDRESS WHERE Company_Name="Thinking Machines" & Department="Marketing" & Role="Vice President" Sure looks like what X.400 addresses encode. And that's essentially what X.500 is -- an automated directory assistance. It takes the complicated X.400 addresses (they're actually called ORNames, short for Originator/Recipient Names), looks up the attributes in a distributed database, and figures out the mail path. Rather than sending a query to the directory service and waiting for the response, you simply put all the information that would be in the query right into the envelope, and the directory service is invoked automatically and the message is sent to its destination. If the information is ambiguous I'd expect to receive a failure notice describing the ambiguity (I don't know whether this is actually in the X.500 protocol -- I am not actually familiar with the implementation details of any of the stuff I've been talking about in this chain). But in cases where I supply enough information, why should I have to wait for a response so I can send the real message? I might be about to leave for the evening, and I'd like to send a message so that it will hopefully reach its recipient by the time he reads his mail in the morning, so I don't want to have to sit around, perhaps for hours if mail is backed up, waiting for the information (the reason telephone D.A. is acceptable is because it rarely takes more than a couple of minutes to use). Now, it would be nice if, when I sent a message that uses a long ORName, the mail system would automatically send back a message that says "in the future, you can use this abbreviated ORName." Someone else suggested sending mail to Postmaster@domain, asking the postmaster to forward the message. First of all, most email postmasters are system administrators and/or system programmers, not receptionists. Second, top executives might not appreciate their mail being sent to underlings (sure, many postmasters have access to the mail queues, but they can usually be trusted not to use this to violate confidentiality, whereas it's easy to accidentally read someone else's mail if it's sent to you). Even if the mail simply asks the postmaster to send back someone's email address, it's not really the postmaster's job. I'm not even our postmaster, but I've received mail from random people saying "I saw from your posting that you're at Thinking Machines, and I know So-and-so works there, could you please send me his email address?" It happens rarely enough that it's not annoying, but if it happened every day I'd quickly tire of it. In the very least, there should be a different standard address for this (Addressmaster@domain). -- Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar