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D. J. Bernstein

aaronsw.com

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Re: D. J. Bernstein

#81

Post by aaronsw »

tptacek wrote: post #54

DJB's code is a lot of things, but when someone says "beautiful" is one of them, I start thinking about how I might quiz them to get them to prove that they've actually read it. Smarter coders than me have sat in rooms for nightlong studies of qmail and come to the conclusion that, while clever, the C code in qmail and djbdns has clearly been compiled down from some higher level language[1]. If that code is anything,…

Are you sure he wrote all of it in C? He often talks about higher-level languages he's written.

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#82

Post by aaronsw »

unalone wrote: post #43
kilowatt wrote: post #32

I was with Aaron until > What other field combines all these arts? Language, math, art, design, function. Programming is clearly in a class of its own. And, when it comes to programmers, who even competes with djb? Who else has worked to realize these amazing possibilities? Who else even knows they are there? Is this satire?

Yeah, only slightly obnoxious. Nothing worse than somebody so relatively new to a field that they still think it objectively is better/cooler/more fulfilling than every other field.

It's hard to claim I'm new to programming. I did it for over a decade and then retired from it. Perhaps it's just nostalgia, then.

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#83

Post by tptacek »

aaronsw wrote: post #81
tptacek wrote: post #54

DJB's code is a lot of things, but when someone says "beautiful" is one of them, I start thinking about how I might quiz them to get them to prove that they've actually read it. Smarter coders than me have sat in rooms for nightlong studies of qmail and come to the conclusion that, while clever, the C code in qmail and djbdns has clearly been compiled down from some higher level language[1]. If that code is anything,…

Are you sure he wrote all of it in C? He often talks about higher-level languages he's written.

Can I promise you that there's no codegen in it? No. Would I bet real money that there's no codegen in it? Yes.

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#84

Post by shawnps »

aaronsw wrote: post #80
shawnps wrote: post #78

Could someone clarify this for me, please? On this page: http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/intro-dns.html under the "Multiple Servers" section, he says "To protect against computer failure, there are actually several root servers, several .to servers, and two yp.to servers." I don't understand, is he saying there are only two DNS servers in the world that you can contact to resolve yp.to?

Yes, that's true for most domains. All the other servers have to cache responses from those two servers. (For the record, the two yp.to servers are currently djb's machines dancer and forcewall.)

What would happen if he suddenly decided to unplug dancer and forcewall forever, would all the other DNS servers in the world fail to resolve yp.to after their cached responses expire?

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#85

Post by whirlycott1 »

tptacek wrote: post #70
alec wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't used qmail, but I use djbdns. The complete installation, possibly including a few patches, is less work than figuring out how to set up BIND's configuration. It's available in Debian from apt-get. It's good that it's so easy to figure out how to use, because I touch it less than once a year, so I've completely forgotten about it. That's great software.

It is hard to imagine the serious, rational, objective argument that could exist for running BIND instead of djbdns, if those are your two choices. There are viable alternatives to qmail (Postfix and Exchange), but there aren't really viable alternatives for djbdns, and djbdns is less opinionated than qmail is.

You mean like dnssec support? Yes, apart from that one super important feature, you may be correct.

And I bet the operators of ten of the thirteen root nameservers who are running BIND will be mighty glad to hear from you!

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#86

Post by tptacek »

whirlycott1 wrote: post #85
tptacek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard to imagine the serious, rational, objective argument that could exist for running BIND instead of djbdns, if those are your two choices. There are viable alternatives to qmail (Postfix and Exchange), but there aren't really viable alternatives for djbdns, and djbdns is less opinionated than qmail is.

You mean like dnssec support? Yes, apart from that one super important feature, you may be correct. And I bet the operators of ten of the thirteen root nameservers who are running BIND will be mighty glad to hear from you!

DNSSEC is a disaster. Even if you liked the protocol today, having support for it in your DNS server wouldn't help you.

It's true though; thirteen root nameserver operators do run BIND. You know what's worse? The tens of millions of people that like The Black Eyed Peas. >shudder< - what's wrong with me?

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#87

Post by kree10 »

shawnps wrote: post #84
aaronsw wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's true for most domains. All the other servers have to cache responses from those two servers. (For the record, the two yp.to servers are currently djb's machines dancer and forcewall.)

What would happen if he suddenly decided to unplug dancer and forcewall forever, would all the other DNS servers in the world fail to resolve yp.to after their cached responses expire?

Yes.

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#88

Post by astine »

andreyf wrote: post #53
astine wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate this attitude. If your code targets my system, I should be able to install it without editing it.

I hate this attitude. If your code targets my system, I should be able to install it without editing it. You certainly should, but it isn't the coder's responsibility to make this possible. It's the language/system designer's. Just because C doesn't let you deploy nicely has nothing to do with djb's ability to create beautifully architected code, which is what Aaron is praising. I'm sure djb could have written equall…

C does let you deploy nicely. A makefile and some discipline are almost all you need. Granted it's not always easy to write a sane makefile, but that is the coder's and not the installer's responsibility.

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#89

Post by shawnps »

shawnps wrote: post #78

Could someone clarify this for me, please? On this page: http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/intro-dns.html under the "Multiple Servers" section, he says "To protect against computer failure, there are actually several root servers, several .to servers, and two yp.to servers." I don't understand, is he saying there are only two DNS servers in the world that you can contact to resolve yp.to?

Is there a way to find out for any given domain how many actual servers hand out responses to other DNS servers to hold in their caches?

Re: D. J. Bernstein

#90

Post by viraptor »

ErrantX wrote: post #76
viraptor wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And where can we find any of his programs to look at?...

anything in the first few years of MS. Altair.BASIC

Of course. But I meant the source for which he could "win prizes for minimal or beautiful code". AFAIK none of it is legally available to anyone.
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