On Fri, Feb 02, 2001 at 01:17:35PM -0600, Jarkko Hietaniemi wrote:
> What I think is needed is some sort of opaque tag: the name of the
> 'contract' the API claims to fulfill. The name can be the name of
> the standard, the name of the company, the name of the individual.
> (Java does a very similar thing but they propose embedding the DNS
> name as part of the package name: I think they the right idea but
> the proposed implementation sucks.)
Well, what you're looking for is a universaly unique identifier.
Our current way for doing that is with a module name and a version number.
That's nice and reasonable, but relies on two different modules not having
the same name. That's not neccessarily a reasonable assumption.
Sun's method takes some existing universaly unique thingy (domain names),
then assumes that the unit identified (the domain name) can orgnize itself
past that point. This might not be true of, say, the customers of an ISP.
MS's method relies on 512-bit constants (GUIDs, like
df5e0ce6-4def-4d6d-a47c-7d00cfffe1ae), which are chosen to have a low
probablity of repitition (they incorporate the time and the MAC address of
the network card, and some other random stuff).
I think the current method is probably best for us.
-=- James Mastros
--
"My country 'tis of thee, of y'all i'm rappin'! Lan where my brothers
fought, land where our King was shot -- from every building top, let freedom
happen!"
-=- Monique, Sinfest[.net]
AIM: theorbtwo homepage: http://www.rtweb.net/theorb/
