On Thu, May 08, 2014 at 12:25:01PM +0200, Denis Walker wrote: Dear Denis
We are not suggesting anything, certainly not abandoning whois. What we are
Good to know.
trying to do is start to raise questions. This database design/model is 15 years old. We can say for sure it is not efficient, relationships are not good, there is massive duplication of data. But does it still do what people want? Could it be (much) better? Could we provide alternative ways to interface with it (and keeping the old ways)? Could we provide better features and services? Can we make your daily/regular tasks with the database easier and quicker and less error prone?
There are many people within the community who have 'grown up' with this database and RPSL. They understand it, know how to use it, have work arounds for it's limitations, have lots of software that integrates with it. But so many new users struggle to do all these things. We see the same problems on training courses. We see the same questions being asked so many times in support tickets. We hear the same issues being raised in the background at meetings.
We know these are big issues and nothing is going to be fixed/improved in one single step. But there is a big knowledge/usability gap between long term/experienced users and new users. In general many of the experienced users don't appreciate the way new users struggle with the complexity of the RIPE Database. So we are trying to raise awareness of this and find a way to move forward.
Please excuse me for not being effusive here. I just want to state that I highly appreciate the way you are trying to clean up all this mess. Piotr -- gucio -> Piotr Strzyżewski E-mail: Piotr.Strzyzewski@polsl.pl