Re: Questions about containers

[Daniel Manley <dmanley@tucows.com>]

Eric Brunner-Williams in Portland Maine wrote:

>>Do the benefits you expect from containers legitimate the enormous amount of
>>complexity they add to a registry, registrar or reseller system (as they
>>introduce hierarchical/recursive data structures)? Do you think the normal
>>end-user is able to understand this concept?
>>
>
>My idea of a normal end-user is a registrar with a tool kit and a manual of
>recommended practice to a) make his or her life easier, and b) make him or
>her and the upstream registry as efficient as possible. Greater ROI. Who is
>your idea of the normal end-user?
>
I understand his point of view, Eric.  How should registrars represent 
containers and hierarchies to their customers (and their own customer, 
in turn) while still keeping it simple and easy to use?  The hierarchy 
is cool, but it could get really messy if a basic end-user gets confused 
and sets up a couple of containers with all kinds of hosts, contacts and 
domains and doesn't understand why the domain isn't resolving or why the 
whois output doesn't show all the contacts they set up (or more than 
they expected).

Taking full advantage of contains also could mean "significant" 
development on both the registry's and registrar's part (and further 
users down the pipe) to make sure data structures are setup right and 
that the structures are easy to manipulate by the registrant.