12/6    A few years ago I saw an online rant about why firstname.lastname
        email addresses are bad.  I think it was by Eric Allman, but I can't
        find any refrences to it.  Any ideas?  -John
        \_ i think it's a great idea.  what's the problem with it?
           \_ There are going to be many people with the same first.last
              combo.  There are going to be many with similar first.last.
              Too many will stupidly assume that first.last @ one place will
              be the same first.last at other places.  Much better to destroy
              that false assumption using all sorts of different things at
              different places.  And oh yeah, older hosts can't deal with
              long user names so you get into making aliases for everyone so
              they now have 2 addresses.
              \_ far lamer is using the first 7 letters, plus the first
                 initial.  EVEN more duplicates.  There's just no easy
                 answer for a large corp.
              \_ not necesarily.  what if it's a pretty small organization
                 that has it's own domain name: first.last@smalldomain.org?
        \_ http://www.sendmail.org/faq/section3.html#3.5.
           He ignores rational arguments against his position. -tom
           \_ Gee, tom, imagine that...
           \_ he won't disagree that it might work for some places.
              he will argue that it is not a general panacea.
              \_ actually, he will refuse to fix sendmail bugs related to
                 real name matching because he thinks you shouldn't do that.
                   -tom
           \_ and what are rational arguments for such a system?
              \_ being able to send mail without first consulting directory
                 services, or without having to have directory services
                 available.  There is also aesthetic appeal to name-based
                 addressing.  It breaks down for large enterprises, but for
                 small groups it's usually fine.  -tom
                   \_ "aesthetic" is not a rational argument. and I think
                       "firstname.lastname" is much uglier that "handle".
                       Anyways it seems designed for people to send email
                       withoug knowing the email address of the recipient.
                       sounds like a system designed for short term laziness
                       at the expense of long term simplicity and sanity.
                       \_ I agree. Let's ditch that DNS thing too. People
                          should use IP addresses, like God intended them to
                          do. Ascii was a bad idea too, everyone should learn
                          to type in hex.
        \_ not the same thing, but here is something:
           http://beef.berkeley.edu/report/namespace.html
            \_ that idea would be great it "you" happened to own the
               you@berkeley.edu name space, but if somebody else gets the
               name you use: you@csua.berkeley.edu  that would suck.
                \_ You would own you@berkeley.edu if you own you@uclink or
                   you@socrates.  That sort of screws people in departments
                   that provide their own mail servers, but it was a
                   necessary compromise to get the report written.  -tom
                     \_ so it screws people in technically competent
                        departments for the benefit of others.
                    \_  if you want shorter email addresses, what about
                        giving uclink or socrates ailiases like
                        <DEAD>mail.berkeley.edu<DEAD> or <DEAD>po.berkeley.edu<DEAD>? something
                        that has one syllable instead of 3.