Why no zone file default name

[Jim Reid]

     > Can anyone explain the design decsion not to have BIND infer a
     > default zone file name from the zone origin and zone type if no
     > "file" option is specified within a zone stanza?

How could the name server "know" the right location in the file system
for storing these zone files? Or if that partition had enough space to
store the files for incoming zone xfers? These are matters of system
administration policy and are best left to the system administrator,
not the name server. Also, some DNS admins like to have lots of
"placeholder" zones sharing one common master zone file. It's also
possible for BIND to run on different platforms that could have
differing syntax for file names. What works on Unix might not work on
NT or .... and vice versa.

     > Is it just because there are n >= 2 highly respected BIND
     > luminatries with differing preferences for zone file naming and
     > we don;t want to offend n-1 of them?

I guess it's because nobody cares enough about this feature to think
it's worthwhile documenting and writing the code to support it. Feel
free to contribute a patch. :-)