Subject: [Tools-discuss] <draftname>[email-masked]

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 15:33:52 +1300

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [Tools-discuss] Datatracker improvements for testing
> Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:21:42 +0100
> From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
> To: [email-masked]
> CC: [email-masked]
> 
> Hi Spencer, Pasi,
> 
> Additional information on one item below:
> 
> On 2010-01-28 18:27 [email-masked] said the following:
>> Spencer Dawkins wrote:
> ..
>>> Re: mailing addresses for the draft - I bet there aren't many people
>>> who do use this - but as a Gen-ART reviewer, I find it
>>> invaluable. 
> ...
> The draft aliases currently available on tools.ietf.org have been
> enhanced during last autumn, so that the following are now available:
> 
>   <draftname>@tools.ietf.org	# Draft authors (for now, could change)
>   <draftname>.authors@		# Draft authors
>   <draftname>.chairs@		# WG Chairs (if the draft is a WG draft)
>   <draftname>.notify@		# The addresses entered into the tracker's
> 				#   email notification field for the draft
>   <draftname>.ad@		# The sponsoring AD, if the draft has gone
> 				#   to the IESG
>   <draftname>.all@		# All of the above, merged into one alias

I just fell into a Brian-shaped trap by unthinkingly sending mail to
[email-masked] instead of
[email-masked]

I see the logic of "." as the delimiter but I fear my fingers
will keep typing "-" whatever my brain tells them ;-)

    Brian

---

From: Henrik Levkowetz <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:12:17 +0100

Hi Brian,

On 2010-02-11 03:33 Brian E Carpenter said the following:
...
> will keep typing "-" whatever my brain tells them ;-)

Mmm.  So do you suggest we add '-' delimited versions of the current '.'
delimited aliases?  It does create the possibility of alias collisions,
if there are at some point drafts named both <somename> and <somename>-all,
<somename> and <somename>-chairs etc., but this is maybe a sufficiently
improbable case that we can ignore it?

I'm not sure what's best here -- the programmer shrinks at the thought
of creating a potential name collision, but the pragmatist sees the
advantage of making things easy on the people who will use the aliases...

Best,

	Henrik

---

From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:34:16 -0500

> advantage of making things easy on the people who will use the aliases...

To reduce the possibility of error, the keywords should clearly be
distribution keywords.  The problem is that "authors", "chairs", etc.
could be used in document names.  Some such as "authors" are pretty safe
but we might see "[email-masked]".  To
eliminate the possibility of collision, make the distribution keywords
clearly scoped.  Hmm ...

Possibly make them unique with a modifier, e.g.
"draft-ietf-tcpm-icmp-attacks.distauthors"?
"draft-ietf-tcpm-icmp-attacks.authors-list"?

Possibly just require the distribution keyword to be all capitals?

Scott

---

From: Adam Roach <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:48:06 -0600

On 2/11/10 4:12 AM, Henrik Levkowetz wrote:
> Mmm. So do you suggest we add '-' delimited versions of the current 
> '.' delimited aliases? It does create the possibility of alias 
> collisions, if there are at some point drafts named both <somename> 
> and <somename>-all, <somename> and <somename>-chairs etc., but this is 
> maybe a sufficiently improbable case that we can ignore it?

I'm not so sure. It would only be through sheer force of will that I 
would be able to prevent myself from submitting drafts with names that 
intentionally end in -all. I'm sure there are some who are more 
discordian and less restrained in our community who won't actually be 
able to resist the temptation.

/a

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:00:41 -0600

Hi, Henrik, (with apologies to Brian)

>> delimited aliases? It does create the possibility of alias collisions, if 
>> there are at some point drafts named both <somename> and <somename>-all, 
> I'm not so sure. It would only be through sheer force of will that I would 
> be able to prevent myself from submitting drafts with names that 
> intentionally end in -all. I'm sure there are some who are more discordian 
> and less restrained in our community who won't actually be able to resist 
> the temptation.
>
> /a

I'm afraid I'm with Adam here. Most of the suffixes on the current list of 
aliases are terms that wouldn't surprise us if they appeared at the end of a 
real filename, especially one about IETF process. I'd rather have Henrik 
working on some other high-priority request, rather than working on 
heuristics to keep us from having this problem.

And I don't have to be discordian to set off this land mine - simply picking 
a filename at the last moment before ID cutoff might be the most likely 
cause of a conflict.

Thanks,

Spencer

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:29:26 +1300

On 2010-02-12 05:00, Spencer Dawkins wrote:
>>> and <somename>-all, <somename> and <somename>-chairs etc., but this
>>> is maybe a sufficiently improbable case that we can ignore it?
>>
> I'm afraid I'm with Adam here. Most of the suffixes on the current list
> of aliases are terms that wouldn't surprise us if they appeared at the
> end of a real filename, especially one about IETF process. I'd rather
> have Henrik working on some other high-priority request, rather than
> working on heuristics to keep us from having this problem.
> 
> And I don't have to be discordian to set off this land mine - simply
> picking a filename at the last moment before ID cutoff might be the most
> likely cause of a conflict.

On balance, I agree. Mixing syntax and semantics is a computer science
blunder. Maybe any documentation of the scheme should flag this as a
common mistake to be avoided.

     Brian

---

From: "Spencer Dawkins" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:30:55 -0600

On behalf of everyone who misaddresses e-mail, I agree ;-)

Spencer