Odd problems trying to make use of libbind as a replacement resolver...

[A Humble Bind User]

> 	With regards to BIND itself, there is a very large amount of very
> high quality documentation available, most of it from Paul Albitz and
> Cricket Liu, in their various books on the subject.

Yeah, everyone starts there, I guess... but it's backwards... it's a manual
written to code, rather than a document upon which to base future
implementations or designs.  Unfortunately, this sort of software evolutionary
process often leads to "frozen flaws", wherein future implementations often
resist fixing certain flaws in order to maintain "bug-for-bug compatibility."
 I'm speaking generally here.

I suppose there are the RFCs, but they speak to protocols, data record
formats, and transactional behaviours more than a formal design document for
software.

> they had damn well better be reading the code itself and know
> backwards and forwards what it is really doing inside, as compared to
> whatever the documentation claims.

Um, formal specifications and code correctness aren't mutually exclusive. 
Your word choice mildly implies that formal specifications and documentation
are the "enemy" of correct code.  That's an ... interesting perspective,
certainly.

> 	On the server side, this has happened.  On the library side,
> you're talking about code that is too deeply embedded in virtually
> every OS on the planet, and you can't just casually rip that out.

OK.

> 	That's not the impression I was getting.

Then you're not reading; you're mapping your own baggage into my own words
which stand on their own.  My initial email was almost completely
interrogatory to seek clarification.  You won't find any "demands" in any of
the subsequent ones either, though I do have to wade through some
condescending clap-trap.

After about the third email, I'd pretty much given up but had continued the
discussion from a theoretical perspective rather than a rant castigating the
ISC for not solving the world's problems.  If that was your impression, then
you're looking too hard for it...

I have no complaint against any of the ISC members or its products.  Those
whose "impressions" lead them to conclude the contrary aren't native readers
of English.

=R=