Re: encodings: do we need binary at all?

["William Allen Simpson" <bsimpson@morningstar.com>]

> From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
> There is an interesting argument being brought up here -- are binary
> encodings of any sort strictly needed?
>
Yes, for values that are descriptive (field types in TLVs, etc).  That
allows easy internationalization.

Also, for values that are merely nominal sequences of values, I find
handling bytes instead of strings a lot easier to implement and debug.

But, we still need to support "naming" and "mapping", such as the email
address you give in your example as a "comment".  So, anything we do has
to support both binary and ASCII (and more than US-ASCII).

Meanwhile, put me in the camp that hates ASN.1.  Worse than worthless,
from a strict implementation and debugging perspective.

Bill.Simpson@um.cc.umich.edu
          Key fingerprint =  2E 07 23 03 C5 62 70 D3  59 B1 4F 5E 1D C2 C1 A2

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