Re: DNS servers

["D. J. Bernstein" <djb@cr.yp.to>]

The ``DNS and BIND'' book repeatedly tells people to check their logs.
Page 313 (3rd edition): ``Unless you [happen to see erroneous output or]
scan your syslog file assiduously, you might never notice the syntax
error!'' Page 80: ``Check the syslog file for error messages.''

So I put ``Look for errors in your system's logs'' into my BIND table.
Craig Sanders goes ballistic: he says this is ``self-serving propaganda
peppered with prejudicial language that attempts to make trivial
operations seem difficult or prone to error.''

Even if I didn't have previous experience with Sanders, I'd find it
difficult to take his comments seriously after that.

Meanwhile, Sanders says that the BIND zone-file syntax

   bear.heaven.af.mil.   86400 IN A 1.2.3.6
   6.3.2.1.in-addr.arpa. 86400 IN PTR bear.heaven.af.mil

is ``human readable'' while the tinydns data syntax

   =bear.heaven.af.mil:1.2.3.6

is ``not human readable.'' Even worse, when he first says this, he
doesn't give any examples---he makes it sound as if the tinydns format
is some insanely complicated format that can't be edited by hand.

When I give an example, Sanders goes ballistic again: ``You assume that
your way is so much better than any other way that you refuse to see
alternate viewpoints....if you were right that would be tolerable, but
in inherently subjective matters like this one you're not right.''

This outburst comes from someone who baldly claimed that the tinydns
data syntax is ``not human readable.'' Wow.

---D. J. Bernstein, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics,
Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago