that 4byte ASN you were considering...

Tue Oct 10 14:41:37 UTC 2006

At 9:44 +0100 10/10/06, Michael.Dillon at btradianz.com wrote:

>It breaks any applications which recognize IP address-like
>objects by seeing a dot in an otherwise numeric token.

I can't believe grown engineers are afraid of a dot.

>We all know that the Internet is awash in homegrown scripts
>written in PERL or TCL or bash or Ruby or Python. It is likely

I find that more of a reason to do a change than to leave well
enough alone.  What's gonna happen when all of the current generation (the
writers of the scripts) retire and close the door on their careers?
How will the Internet live on?

Shouldn't a technical beast be able to thrive on technical changes?
But that question isn't germane to the issue at hand.

>The real question is what does the notation 1.0 add that the
>notation 65536 does not provide?

Fair enough - my answer is it provides the same as the dotted
quad for IP, it makes it easier for human to human conveyance.
It also makes the transition from 2 byte to 4 byte more obvious
in the interim.

>If the IETF had really wanted to create a universal notation

The IETF "really" doesn't "want to create" anything.  The IETF is
just a forum where folks can gather to discuss an issue like this.
(Pardon my second non-germane comment on this thread.)

>When IP addresses were created, it was important to indicate
>the boundaries between the network number and the host address.
>Originally, the periods represented this boundary for the
>three classes of IP address, class A, class B and class C.
>Long ago, we removed this classfulness attribute, but the
>notation remains because lots of applications expect this
>notation. So why on earth are we changing AS number notation
>today?

For the same reason - to distinguish the boundaries between what
the old engineers know from what the future young engineers will
take for granted.  The dot would outlast the old engineers just
as the dotted quad persists into the CIDR age.

"Why on earth?"  Because there aren't [m]any IP addresses on the moon.

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Edward Lewis                                                +1-571-434-5468
NeuStar

Secrets of Success #107: Why arrive at 7am for the good parking space?
Come in at 11am while the early birds drive out to lunch.