[ANet-devel] Various Comments

[<Ant...@ao...>]

    Sorry for the long pause in reply's.  I'm moving 1000 miles in less than 
two weeks, and I have alot going on (cleaning, packing, etc.).  I have been 
keeping up to date however, and have a lot of things that I'd like to 
mention.    I'll try to comment as things come to mind.  

First - referencing Benad's comments
>My example of "Passive File System" is much better, I think, because it's
>much like FTP: there is NO searching systems at all. You just wait for file
>lists, distributed as static data, and once those file lists are on your
>computer, you search them on your computer, not on the network. And I
>personally prefer file browsing than file leeching... (See last chapter in
>Part 1 of the docs)

    Although I agree that a downloading a list of files and browsing it 
locally will help to eliminate extensive file searches, we should address 
other types of content.  If ANet is going to be a backbone for distributed a 
network then there are going to be other types of content floating around the 
network.  Two examples in which people will actively need to look for 
something... (my apologizes if these have already been addressed)

1.  Finding a users/machine/node for chat on the network
2.  Finding services, or content by service type

    The second one is important because of the new functionality this 
network-type could handle.  Examples:  distributed computing, large scale 
transfers, and distributed network based simulations.  I personally already 
have some new ideas for services.

>I don't think streaming content (more than just text)
>would work properly with the current way ANet is defined...

    Although not necessary now, I would like to see room for this addition 
later.  If you want know specifics to why or some of my ideas how, I'll 
gladly discuss it, but I don't feel it's necessary at this point.  To many 
other more important things to discuss.

Second - I'd like to dig into the services on top of ANet thing.  How are we 
working the transition from the ANet to a machine with a usuable service on 
it?  We could rework the data passing through ANet to something recognizable 
by existing services on a program to program basis, or we could do it by a an 
entire sheet of data and let the service take only the data it normally 
takes.  How though are we going to keep track of what services are available? 
 We could design a custom type of search, or we could include service 
information right in the file list.
    Personally, I could really get to like the idea that services could be 
browsed much like files.  I also feel it would help in situation I mentioned 
above about searching.  I still feel that a mechanism for searching for users 
is going to be necessary though, but trying to find ever node is a lot less 
congesting to a network than finding every *.mp3 on every node of network.  
Also, finding a user is a lot more like a community than finding a file.  
However, this bring up the issue of knowing who is really who, and how secure 
the data recieved from a node actually is.  Benad mentioned Public Keys, and 
I think this may be a solution.  This is something we're have to discuss.

Third - I checked out that article and it had some pretty good statistics in 
it.  The whole site actually has some good information on it, it was my first 
time there.  Definately worth checking out, thanks.

                                                                                
                    jmitchell