Quote from: twobits on April 28, 2013, 12:36:59 AM

--snipped--- for brevity Wink

There's a few things going on - hence trying to clear up things.

1) Nodes
What:
Long standing dvc nodes - ideally placed on fast connections & configured with a large number of connections.

Why:
To allow new & existing clients to bootstrap quickly. To allow a complete fall-back when other systems aren't functioning.

How:
Coded dns names in the code - that allow cname & a lookups.

2) Locators - client discovery
What:
Review the current infrastructure to ensure it's suitable for scalable growth.
IRC, DDNS (DNS Seeding), Client cache

Why:
It's good to review where you are and where you're going.
DNS Seeding should be reviewed and checked to see if the current setup is optimal. DNS Seed names (DNS entries) should be checked & updated - are we using the most appropriate record types, what's the change control process. As you mention - does it fallback properly should those DNS Seeds be taken out? Can geoDNS be leveraged to help users download the blockchain from their closest neighbours. Tech has moved on - DNS has improved a lot - with ipv6 more prevalent now - srv & locator records can be used and you have more granular control over the how & what.
geoDNS is now pretty affordable and no longer limited to the big-boys - it can make a huge difference to the blockchain startup/catchup time for end-users.
The existing locators aren't setup to gather & supply metrics - each DNS query, irc join is a statistic that's useful in gauging adoption, growth & measuring scale.

How:
Test, metrics, target goals for how this works.

3) DNS
What:
Using existing DNS names to make config & setup easier & simpler for end users.

Why:
Long term success in pretty much all things comes down to making something accessible to end users.

How:
Update the way a handful of (1) are recorded in DNS, update the documentation for users telling them they can addnode=dvc.devcoin.me and you'll be up & running in no time.
Using something like dvc.devcoin.me is way easier than 15 addnode=abc.def.ijk.lmn entries when a user is complaining that its taken 20h for their blockchain to be downloaded.

I'm overly cautious when it comes to DDNS because there's risk - it's easy to pollute and as it's a centralised public resource it's an address book of hosts.