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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.general
Subject: Re: The Canadian Domain: Introduction to CA
Message-ID: <1167@looking.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 26-Nov-87 23:48:01 EST
Article-I.D.: looking.1167
Posted: Thu Nov 26 23:48:01 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 17:02:00 EST
References: <1987Nov23.095020.13055@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Distribution: can
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 45

In article <1987Nov26.160644.10193@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> rayan@ai.toronto.edu (Rayan Zachariassen) writes:
>In article <1165@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>
>The problem in this case is that there is no mechanism
>to do this kind of aliasing in a global fashion, or even within a single
>network. 

Right.  Naming for memorizability and understandability should be the global
function.  Naming for quick typing should be the local function.

Thus the global network names should be the human place names.
(My real beef here starts with "Ca" which is far inferior to "Canada".  Now
if I want international mail I will have to look up cryptic two letter
country codes.  I would gladly pay a few extra keystrokes for understandable
international mail)

>there was no good consistent scheme
>using unabbreviated names (or do people really want PrinceEdwardIsland,
>NorthWestTerritories, BritishColumbia, etc., like Ontario et al?). The same
>argument was the reason for not abbreviating municipality names (no consistent
>sensible way of doing it).
>rayan

The true name should be the most readable name.   "BC" and "PEI" would be
perfectly acceptable official alternate names, although the long names like
British_Columbia should also exist.

The easiest answer to satisfy both drives is to supply both.  For
the provinces it's hardly a major burden.  (Far less typing than this debate)

But the municipalities show up my point.  People from far away won't know
whatever abbreviations local municipalities have.  This place calls itself
"kw", and in T.O. they think of the area as "metro".  Do they know this
in Boise?

Another example is the phone company.  Because of keyboard limitations,
they use "area codes", which you only remember for major places after lots
of use.  For the rest, you have to look on a map.  To call somebody you
don't know requires looking up a code in a book, or calling a directory
service.  A nicely designed naming scheme would make your intuitive first
guess of a person's address the *right* guess.  Can you imagine this for
phone numbers?

-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473