[147432] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: [Cryptography] encoding formats should not be committee'ized
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Gilmore)
Tue Oct 1 22:42:02 2013
X-Original-To: cryptography@metzdowd.com
To: Mark Atwood <me@mark.atwood.name>
In-reply-to: <CANW5CYXkw3TNo68+EyeA=aLktYp2D36KCv74+sx_vkZ02hFCVg@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 01 Oct 2013 17:41:40 -0700
From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com>
Cc: Tony Arcieri <bascule@gmail.com>, Crypto <cryptography@metzdowd.com>,
ianG <iang@iang.org>
Errors-To: cryptography-bounces+crypto.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@metzdowd.com
> > Here's a crazy idea: instead of using one of these formats, use a
> > human readable format that can be described by a formal grammar
> > which is hopefully regular, context-free, or context-sensitive in a
> > limited manner
If only we could channel the late Jon Postel. Didn't you ever notice
how almost all the early Arpanet/Internet standards use plain text
separated by newlines, simply parsed, with a word at the front of each
line that describes what is on the line? Like, for example, the
header of this email message. And the SMTP exchange that delivered it
to your mailbox.
It makes everything so easy to debug...and extend...and understand.
And it turns out to often be more compact than binary formats.
Much better than binary blobs that not even their mother could love.
John
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