From: timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: Re: Domain naming conventions
Organization: TDK Consulting Services
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:40:07 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.191742.709@combdyn.com> lawrence@combdyn.com (Lawrence Chen) writes:
>In article <1993Jan2.195509.27735@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca> timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn) writes:

>>"Problems due to transcription errors" is a smoke screen since any such 
>>errors will be caught the first time a message is sent to an ill-transcribed
>>address when it bounces.
>I prefer short and easy to remember.  Our users group is known as UUMH.

This isn't quite what I'd call cryptic since it's the first letters of
your user's group/city.

>So, our domain name is .uumh.ab.ca....even though the mh stands for Medicine
>Hat, we have membership outside of Medicine Hat so all was okay.....

>The company on the other hand....(at the time was only in Medicine Hat) so
>following the guidelines that came with the application-form....
>
>We came up with a domain name of .CombDynLtd.MedicineHat.AB.CA, 

why the "ltd" in there?

>along the
>way we needed to exchange mail with DRES...and I had to try to tell the
>person what our email address was going to be.  I told him that my address
>was 'lawrence@combdyn.CombDynLtd.MedicineHat.AB.CA'....now its just
>'lawrence@combdyn.com'.  I wonder which is easier to tell people, remember,
>and type? 8-)

The first name is bording on the edge of the ridiculous, I'll grant 
you that.

However, if we took the first four letters of all the city name(s), 
would that generate a unique identifier within a province? For example, 

Medicine Hat 	= medihat

Toronto 	= toro
Waterloo 	= wate 
St Catherines 	= stcath 
Kitchener 	= kitc
Hamiltion 	= hami 
Wentworth 	= went 
London 		= lond

Vancouver	= vanc

Lac du Bonnet		= lacdubonn
Portage la Prairie	= portlaprair

etc.

Under this scheme, you would be lawrence@combdyn.medihat.ab.ca, which is 
not unreasonable at all. (It'd be your decision to make it 
lawrence@combdyn.CombDyn.medihat.ab.ca though, in which case the 
excess verbosity would be your own fault.)

If we were concerned with being unique across all of .ca, then it 
probably wouldn't work since there's undoubtedly cities which are
not unique, or at least not unique in the first four characters of
their name. But since we only have to be unique across a province, 
it just may work.  And since it's a reasonable mnemonic of the 
existing geographical areas with a very simple naming rule, it'd 
be easy to remember.

Anyone have a comprehensive list of cities this could be run across 
and see what happens? A quick look through my Hammond World Atlas
seems to look like it would work for the vast majority of the cases.

> --EMAIL-----------------------------PHONE-----------FAX------------
> | WORK: lawrence@combdyn.com      | (403)529-2162 | (403)529-2516 |
> | HOME: dreamer@lhaven.uumh.ab.ca | (403)526-6019 | (403)529-5102 |
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
>  disclamer = (working_for && !representing) + (Combustion Dynamics Ltd.);

 +-----------+-----------------------------------+---------------------------+
 | Tim Kuehn | TDK Consulting Services           | timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca |
 | <><       | Ask me about news and mail in KW! | (519)-888-0766            |
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