On Fri, 18 Sep 2009 at 11:04, Andrew McNamara wrote:
[attribution lost; apparently Steven D'Aprano given the CC]
To a non-specialist, "the network address" is ambiguous. There are many
addresses in a network, and none of them are the entire network. It's
like saying, given a list [2, 4, 8, 12], what's "the list item"?
A "network address" is an IP address and mask, but I understand your
confusion - we're mixing terminology from disperate domains. In my
postings, I have tried to refer to Network (a containter) and Address
(an item).
Apparently not, in many people's vocabulary. The 'network address'
is used to designate the IP address whose bits corresponding to the one
bits in the mask have been set to zero (ie: the first IP address in the
network range).
It is interesting how this item seems to lead to the greatest amount of
confusion on everyone's part, and I'm guessing it is because the common
terminology and usage blurs the line between addresses and networks.
And that's what we are trying to make clear(er) through a well structured
API.
--David
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