Well, one thing it is important to remember is RFC822 was written in August
of 1982, almost 18 years ago.
There were probably many systems out there that were translating
(internally) "." to " " (e.g., a local mail delivery name for me might be
"Derek Balling", with my e-mail being Derek.Balling@company.com.
This would probably confuse them if there was a trailing space.
I don't KNOW what the specific reasons were (I was only 11 at the time, and
as such the IETF meetings were past my bed-time *G*), but I suspect they
fall something along those lines.
The here and now is that many many MANY systems adhere strictly to RFC822,
so to CHANGE it is no small undertaking. Certainly there will be
enhancements and changes over time, but it is one of those things where
people won't take lightly to changing it.
D
At 04:31 PM 6/21/00 -0400, Swerve wrote:
>Hi Tim,
>
>With what you said in mind, do you know why the body that manages RFC's does
>not allow a dot or . as the name part of an email address? (as in
>.@bleah.com) Or could you point me to a specific document that explains
>this? Or provide an email address that i could write someone about this?
>
>perhaps we should go off list with this discussion.
>
>Josh Melamed
>
> > From: "Tim Jung" <tjung@igateway.net>
> > Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 14:53:16 -0500
> > To: <discuss-list@opensrs.org>
> > Cc: "Lance Woodson" <lance@cswnet.com>, "Jeremy Bettis"
> <jeremyb@hksys.com>,
> > "Derek J. Balling" <dredd@megacity.org>, "Swerve" <shwa@swerve.com>
> > Subject: Re: "." before the "@"
> >
> > I think before you make a statement like "I would hope that the RFC
> decision
> > makers take a less restrictive stance on these protocols to allow for
> > greater creativity" that you read up on all the background material that
> > went in to making an RFC, or at a bare minimum that you become part of a
> > workgroup that is creating an RFC. Then you will understand why things are
> > done the way they are done. It isn't to be restrictive but rather to make
> > sure it works with all platforms under most if not all conditions.
> >
> > Please consult the RFC's before you start saying that things should or
> > should not be done a certain way, or that say good data will be excluded
> > because of this or that reason. I can write a regex against the RFC's
> and if
> > it doesn't clear the regex then it is bad data regardless of what you
> say or
> > want. Remember that as ISP's when you get your backbone connection contract
> > it tells you in there that you and your system must abide by, and be RFC
> > complaint, and anything different just isn't really Internet standards.
> >
> >
> > Tim Jung
> > System Admin
> > Internet Gateway Inc.
> > tjung@igateway.net
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Swerve" <shwa@swerve.com>
> > To: "Derek J. Balling" <dredd@megacity.org>; "Jeremy Bettis"
> > <jeremyb@hksys.com>; "Lance Woodson" <lance@cswnet.com>
> > Cc: <discuss-list@opensrs.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2000 12:05 PM
> > Subject: Re: "." before the "@"
> >
> >
> >> i was one of the original posters wondering if
> >> .@LegalizeMarijuana.Org would work.
> >>
> >> it sounds like this is not an accepted technical standard, and thus could
> >> cause email disruptions because it is not universally accepted. In the
> >> future i would hope that the RFC decision makers take a less restrictive
> >> stance on these protocols to allow for greater creativity in this very
> > cool
> >> medium we are all working in.
> >>
> >> Josh Melamed
> >>
> >> ~ don't forget about the big picture. xHale
> >>
> >>> From: "Derek J. Balling" <dredd@megacity.org>
> >>> Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 09:04:54 -0700
> >>> To: "Jeremy Bettis" <jeremyb@hksys.com>, "Lance Woodson"
> > <lance@cswnet.com>
> >>> Cc: <discuss-list@opensrs.org>
> >>> Subject: Re: "." before the "@"
> >>>
> >>> Just because YOUR system is tolerant of bad data and the recipient's
> >>> system is tolerant of bad data doesn't mean the database should be
> >>> polluted with bad data.
> >>>
> >>> D
> >>>
> >>> At 9:37 AM -0500 6/20/00, Jeremy Bettis wrote:
> >>>> Because there is no need, if you hand an address to your mailer and it
> > barfs
> >>>> on it, it doesn't matter why it barfed.
> >>>>
> >>>> My point is this: most form validation doesn't help anyone. It makes
> > it
> >>>> harder for the customer to use and harder for the vendor to debug. If
> > you
> >>>> arn't going to do digitial processing on the data, then you don't need
> >>>> validation conditions, if you are going to do processing on the data,
> > then
> >>>> use the same method for validation that you use for processing. You
> > want to
> >>>> know if an email address is valid, send an email. You want to see if a
> > zip
> >>>> code is valid, look it up in a city/state zip code database.
> >>>>
> >>>> Eventually someone will come along and give your form valid data that
> > your
> >>>> regex doesn't like for some reason. I'd rather not have to fix it
> > EVER.
> >>>> --
> >>>> Jeremy Bettis -- Hickman-Kenyon Systems, Inc.
> >>>> jeremyb@hksys.com
> >>>>
> >>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>> From: "Lance Woodson" <lance@cswnet.com>
> >>>> Cc: <discuss-list@opensrs.org>
> >>>> Sent: Monday, June 19, 2000 1:07 PM
> >>>> Subject: Re: "." before the "@"
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> I'd love to send a confirmation email but how can I send a
> > confirmation
> >>>>> email to an incorrectly typed email address?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The testing of a regex should be pretty easy. Many eyes make few
> > bugs.
> >>>>> :-) /me knocks on wood.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> RFCs are requests for comments. They aren't automatically standards
> > so
> >>>>> just because someone publishes one, doesn't mean the standard changes.
> >>>>> I can't fathom the standard for email addresses changing any time
> > soon.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Also, why would you not even require an @? I'm not trying to start a
> >>>>> flame war; I've just never heard an argument for not requiring an @.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
> >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.3 : Tue Oct 19 2004 - 23:35:38 EDT