Re: sockets APIs extensions for Host Identity Protocol

[Stephane Bortzmeyer <[e-mail]>]

On Wed, May 09, 2007 at 09:19:14AM -0400,
 Keith Moore <[e-mail]> wrote 
 a message of 129 lines which said:

> First is that there will always be some applications (such as
> diagnostic tools) that need to know more about the network, so it is
> necessary to have an API that allows those applications to function.

We all (I believe) agree that we need a low-level API, mostly, as you
said, for debugging / monitoring / teaching purposes and for some
optimizations in very specific applications.

But this is not the point to discuss since we *already* have this API,
the sockets API, and it works.

What we discuss is a *new* API, a high-level one, not meant to replace
the low-level one for *everything* but for most applications.
 
> Fourth, for a variety of reasons, DNS names are not and have never
> been adequate as general purpose endpoint identifiers,

This is a sensible explanation but, if we agree with it, it only means
that we rule out DNS for the identification of the new high-level
"connection objects". This does not mean that the whole idea of a
high-level API is wrong.

> I guess you wouldn't use Skype then, 

Right.

> preferring to spend lots of money on international phone calls.

I use email. I may switch to SIP or Jabber. I did not find a RFC
describing Skype.