zlacker

>>1vuio0+(OP)
> When I remind HN readers that most site addresses are more static than dynamic, I am basing that statement on evidence i have collected.

Sure. But without seeing the other sides argument, I have to wonder if their point wasn't that they're not designed to be stable for the purpose of identifying a service/thing on the Internet; things can and do move and change. Hardware failure is a good example of that. Just like a house address, those too are normally stable but people can & do move. Just with software, it's like we look our friend up in the white pages¹ prior to every visit, which one might not do in real life.

¹oh God I'm dating myself here.

>>deatha+A6
That was not the other side's "point". I routinely make the statement: Most sites submitted to HN have realtively static IP addresses, i.e., these addresses can change, but in fact they change only infrequently, if at all.^1 This is not an opinion. It is not a mindless regurgitation of something I read somewhere. I am looking at the data I have, not theorising. From where I sit, there is nothing to argue about.

1. Why do I state that. Because I kept reading about why DNS was created and always encountered the same parroted explanation, year after year. Something along the lines that IP addresses were constantly in flux. That may have been true when DNS was created and the www was young. But was it true today. I wanted to find out. I did experiments. I found I could use the same DNS data day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

Why would I care. Because by eliminating remote DNS lookups I was able to speed up the time it takes me to retrieve data from the www.^2 Instead of making the assumption that every site is going to switch IP addresses every second, minute, day or week, I assume that only a few will do that and most will not. I want to know about those sites that are changing their IP address. I want to know the reasons. When a site changes its IP address, I am alerted, as you see with today's change to HN's address. Whereas when people assume every site is frequently changing its IP address, they perform unnecesary DNS lookups for the majority of sites. That wastes time among other things. And, it seems, people are unaware when sites change addresses.

2. Another benefit for me is that when some remote DNS service does down (this has happened several times), I can still use the www without interruption. I already have the DNS data I need. Meanwhile the self-proclaimed "experts" go into panic mode.

>>1vuio0+yf
> Because I kept reading about why DNS was created and always encountered the same parroted explanation, year after year. Something along the lines that IP addresses were constantly in flux. That may have been true when DNS was created and the www was young.

Interesting! That runs in direct conflict to what I learned eons ago (pre-web) for "why DNS?". (Or maybe, it conflicts with what my faulty meat brain remembers.)

The gist was "we have DNS because without it, people would have use numbers. people don't like numbers." DNS is primarily there to provide semantic meaning". The fact that it allows the numbers to change is.. a secondary bonus.

DNS exists for the same reason as variable names instead "variable numbers" (like a, b, c, d, &c) For us humans to provide semantic labels to things.

(an aside, "variable number" is exactly how things are still done in math and physics. This amuses me greatly.)

>>loxias+6o
I did not study computer science so anything I know I learned from reading what was available in textbooks and on the internet itself. I learned DNS exists because the number of hosts was growing too quickly to keep updating a HOSTS file. The HOSTS file permits me to assign semantic meaning, i.e., names, to IP numbers. I can name hosts however I choose, and in practice I still do, because I like very short names. A simple analogy perhaps might be assigning names, images, sounds, etc. to different stored contact numbers on a mobile phone. The owner of the phone can control the semantic meaning assigned to the number, rather than delegating all control over this to someone else.

DNS, as I see it, lets someone else assign the names, i.e., the semantic meaning. Thus, assuming I am an internet user in the pre-DNS era, with the advent of DNS, I do not have to keep updating a HOSTS file when new hosts come online or change their address. This reduces administrative burden. The semantic meaning was already controllable pre-DNS, via the HOSTS file.

Many times I have read the criticisms of IP addresses as justifications for DNS. For example, IP addresses are (a) difficult to type or (b) difficult to remember. I simply cannot agree with such criticisms. As time goes on, and the www gets continually more nonsensically abstracted, I like IP addresses more and more.