Re: ASN.1 (Was: [9fans] More 'Sam I am')

[lucio@proxima.alt.za]

> So why not /lib/ndb format: textual attribute=value pairs
> with grouping?

Because (a) they are language/alphabet specific and (b) they are
inefficient.

Before you jump down my throat, I am aware that the inefficiencies
smack of premature optimisation, but in ASN.1 days they were mere
failures of vision.  And I do maintain that saving processor cycles
and storage is not a futile quest.  The corollary to Moore's Law is
"Software bloat exceeds any gains in processor performance even before
such gains can be exploited".

It also strikes me as remarkable that you'd think ASN.1 is intended to
represent C structures.  I would think the intent was to be a message
format on the wire and the internal representation was left as a
matter of implementation.  The latter, of course, is where it all fell
apart because (a) there were issues that could not be finalised
without conflict and (b) there were mistakes that were only discovered
once different implementations could not interoperate.

In the latter case, I have to concede that the IETF is better geared
for the laying down of standards.  Skip is right in that standards
ought not to be accepted until there has been an implementation, but
of course that sword has two edges, too.

++L