[174] in Zephyr_Comments
*-visible vs *-announced (what's the point?)
jbs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jbs@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Mon Mar 20 19:14:26 1989
I've been thinking about this and the distinction makes almost
no sense to me.
The same information is being made available (is xxx on the system) except
that with *-visible exposure, the viewer needs to request the information.
I see this as an optimization, not as information control.
To illustrate the point: I am considering writing a znol-type program
which would do a ZGetLocations() every 30 seconds or so. This would be a
globally bad thing because it would load down the servers (especially
after I gave it out to my friends).
In summary, I believe that if you are *-visible, the servers should provide
notifications upon request to interested parties, as an optimization w/r/t
server load and pinging znol-type programs.
