One thing I assume about how our usersdeal with the local computing environment is that there exists asignificant body of oral traditions and folklore around (at least) thegraduate students. When you think about it, this is inevitable; whennew graduate students show up they are going to ask the people aroundthem for help, and that's the older graduate students.

(This gives you oral tradition; you get folklore because there's noguarantee that the information the older graduate students will passon is correct

A recent sysadmin discussion here wound up with one of the participantssuggesting that we deal with a particular issue by creating a newhostname, because after all names are cheap. This remark crystallizedsomething for me.

I disagree. Names are not cheap, they are actually expensive. Nameslook cheap because they are easy to create, but they create clutter anduncertainty (over what name is still being used by what) that makesthem expensive in the long run.

(Once you have enough names and enough uncertainty, you