>Traditionally the ancient version has always been in the 'tools'
>sub-directory and the new version has been in the "contrib"
>sub-directory.  Unfortunately with the advent of BIND-8 the ancient
>version was "promoted" to the 'bin' directory and the new version was
>left out.  My understanding of the decision that lead to this was that
>since the new version was being independently maintained it wasn't seen
>as a good idea to include a stale copy of it in the BIND distribution.
>I'm not sure exactly why it was felt the ancient version should be kept
>instead, since it's most stale of all.

	if the above is correct, and if i were you (with deep love to "host")
	i'd try talking to bind{,9}-workers again and again :-)
	they may have some particular reason to keep the old (or current
	BIND8/9) "host", they may not be aware of the new one, or whatever.

>I've made noises in the past in the bind-workers list, but usually I
>simply try to promote the new version of 'host' instead of actively
>campaining for the replacement or erradication of the ancient version in
>the BIND distribution.

	if you don't try convince ISC for replacing it, it will be in
	BIND9, BIND10, and BIND128.

>> 	which future version of BIND are you talking about?  could you clarify?
>I don't seem to have saved the announcement, but IIRC someone from ISC
>has stated that 'dig' will supersede both nslookup and the ancient
>version of 'host' as the "official" DNS test and query tool for the BIND
>distribution.

	i can imagine the following story:
	- ISC announces to nuke nslookup/host in favor of dig
	- people cried that they need nslookup, or host
	- ISC kept these
	not sure if it is the current situation or not, but it's highly
	likely.

>I personally can't imagine why 'dig' was chosen over the new version of
>'host' though since 'dig' is about the most useless and non-unix-like
>tool I've ever seen, other than maybe nslookup, though even nslookup has
>a usable command-line.  I've never used it and I personally delete it
>from all my own systems and don't normally build it in my source trees.

	i love dig because it is not fancy, and takes every parameter
	from commandline (unlike nslookup).  hmm, wonderful world of
	personal preferences;-)

itojun