Hi Rich,
>> IMHO there is no need mentioning IP addresses or port
>> numbers this early.
> How about if I make the IP address phrase parenthetical?
Fine.
I myself am using parentheses frequently to express
something like a "melody" or "less emphasis" and the
like. HTML _does_ provide things like these, and I
just think this would be a place to make use of it.
> I am very averse to "dumbing down" the docs.
Full ACK.
> Yes, they should be accessible to the beginner, but not
> to the point where they become useless to the advanced user.
I would not suggest to totally leaving out mentioning
IP adresses.
My point was just about whether it must be at the very
start of the first line of the paragraph, instead of
maybe the fourth or so, as I think this is not what
the (scanning) reader has in mind at this moment.
But it is not that much of a difference.
> Hmm. I'm not really sure if I agree. Primarily because
> of the fact that people seem to think that if they add
> a vhost, it will magically make DNS resolve that name
> to their server.
I did mention that they would have to do something
for it, either in some DNS config if they are network
people or maybe in their hosts file if the are using
Apache on their standalone PC.
> These are the same folks who also think that if they add
> a vhost for cnn.com they will suddenly hijack all traffic
> from that site.
I wouldn't bother letting _these_ people be misguided. ;-)
> Additionally, I *frequently* get asked why the vhost docs
> don't contain more about DNS configuration (standard answer:
> a) this is the Apache doc, not a DNS doc and 2) Which DNS
> server should I document here?)
> And folks want to have something here about the format of
> /etc/hosts files.
To your surprise, I can well understand this. ;-)
I would not suggest to document any DNS server software,
and not even the "hosts" format (because it may well be
platform specific whether whitespace is valid in certain
situations).
But I _would_ try to document _why_ there is the need
of name resolving, and that there are two basic concepts
how to do this (either locally by a file, or externally
by some server), any _then_ it would be easy to explain
the visibility scopes of name resolving (as you mentioned
the "hijacking" scenario above).
To sum it up: Apache IMHO should not explain _syntax_ of
name resolving (and should explicitly say why: One can
always refer to some man page about hosts format - there
should be stable URLs in the Web for that - or "read the
manual of the DNS server in question"), but it might help
to explain part of the _semantics_.
> I don't think that there is any way to make everyone happy,
> but it's a noble goal.
Consider my opinion as just one more opinion - I may well
be misguided at this point.
Greetings,
Michael
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