[OT] Re: User @ domain.tld as ID (Once again)

[Mike Hearn]

On Thu, 03 Nov 2005 16:01:21 +0000, Martin Atkins wrote:
> So my proposal is this: YADIS will go ahead and use URLs, because it has 
> to as a fundamental requirement. Another spec can try to standardize 
> mapping an email address onto a URL, which will then automatically 
> enable YADIS to use email addresses. There's no reason why these two 
> things have to be bound together into one spec.

That's not so useful, as users could never know if whatever random
implementation the website is using will accept their email address or
not. So you basically have to use a URL, and we're back to the original
problem that people bring up all the time (which revolves around
usability, really).

Layering *can* be good, but it's (again) a tool like any other. When the
designers of the PNG spec examined the issue of compression, some people
suggested that gzip should be an optional part of the spec. Wisely IMHO
they decided it should not be optional as otherwise people would
invariably ship uncompressed PNGs for compatibility with the 5% of
implementations that didn't support it. So they made it required, which
really wasn't all that hard, and everybody could use compression without
fear of un-portability.

This is doubly important for something that regular end users will be
interacting with - consistency and usability are vital.

thanks -mike