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So here's how my outlining software uses the DNS API from Amazon. When outliners are used to author web content they often have a huge linkrot problem, because the address of an object is a function of its location in the outline. Move it, and all previous links broke. But you use an outliner for its ability to reorganize, and it's that very ability that makes it more likely that links will break. We used to think this was just a tradeoff you had to live with... But then we hit on the idea of placing a name on a headline, that stays with it as it moves around. And if that name were managed by DNS, we wouldn't even have to write a resolver for the name, DNS would do most of the work for us! Really neat when an ancient bit of technology ends up solving a very modern problem. Love it. But -- creating a new CNAME is a major distraction! This is what you have to do to create a new CNAME. 1. Bring the browser to the front. 2. Choose the Domains page of your DNS provider from your Bookmarks menu. 4. Choose the domain from your list of domains. 5. Click the link to edit the zone file. 8. Find your way back to doing what you were doing. That's why we don't use DNS as a way of marking a spot in a web structure. But what if, instead, there was a button in my outliner that did most of the work. 1. Click the Add Marker button. The important thing is that you didn't have to switch contexts, or load up your brain with a whole other lengthy task and then somehow try to regain the context of your work. You're much more likely, in teh first scenario, to avoid it -- too much trouble. In the second, once you understood what it did, it's relatively painless. The key is to add an API to DNS so the functionality can be integrated into the editing app. BTW, we only use a very small subset of the Amazon API. One entrypoint is all that's absolutely necessary, one that creates a new CNAME record. |
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I'm trying to talk 
