-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Je Merkredo 18 Aprilo 2001 14:36, vi skribis: > > 1) They are fairly static > > No, they are not at all static.
Perhaps we're talking about two different catalog mechanism. According to the information on the web page (about how to make keys available), catalogs are voluntarily published by the data holders, and are somehow propegated through the system. My understanding is that each server has a catalog, which can be fetched by request; for this to work, servers have to treat catalogs as different from other data, so that catalogs aren't propegated between servers -- if this happened, catalogs would become static. Since it is a Bad Idea to start adding exceptions to a system (look at Java's non-Object native types, the only things keeping Java from being a pure OO platform), I assumed that this wouldn't be the case. However, your claims that the catalogs are not static leads me to believe that you have indeed started adding exceptions to the system. > > 2) They are abusable > > All publically writable spaces are abusable. Therefore all unmoderated > indexing and searching systems are abusable. Catalogs don't seem to be > more abusable than other systems. Again, my complaint only holds if catalogs aren't treated as key lists which are unique to a specific server and non-propegated. > > 3) The infrastructure to make catalogs work is much more complex than a > > simple dynamic, distributed key-matching system, and provides very few > > It's less complex. And it's pretty much done. Microsoft Windows is "pretty much done", too. Does that make it good or efficient? Humbug. You've added an entire mechanism which duplicates much of the work of file sharing but with special behavior, for a single, specific case: the transfer of catalogs, without propegation. The non-propegation characteristic of catalogs reinforces my second primary complaint about catalogs: the server contains an easily decoded list of names and descriptions of the data stored on the server. This is information which
