Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-25 Thread Steven M. Bellovin
On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:59:55 +1000 "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Many protocols use some form of self describing data format, for > example ASN.1, XML, S expressions, and bencoding. > > Why? > > Presumably both ends of the conversation have negotiated what > protocol version the

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-23 Thread Nicolas Williams
On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 11:28:37AM -0400, Richard Salz wrote: > >Many protocols use some form of self describing data format, for example > > ASN.1, XML, S expressions, and bencoding. > > I'm not sure what you're getting at. All XML and S expressions really get > you is that you know how to skip

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-23 Thread James A. Donald
James A. Donald: > > In the case of XML, yes there is a parsing engine, > > and if the structure of the DTD reflects the > > structure of the algorithm, then indeed it makes > > things much easier. But usually the committee have > > not thought about the algorithm, or have unresolved > > disagree

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-21 Thread Nicolas Williams
On Mon, Jun 11, 2007 at 09:28:02AM -0400, Bowness, Piers wrote: > But what is does help is allowing a protocol to be expanded and enhanced > while maintaining backward compatibility for both client and server. Nonsense. ASN.1's PER encoding does not prevent extensibility. ---

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-21 Thread Nicolas Williams
> >But the main motivation (imho) is that it's trendy. And once anyone > >proposes a heavyweight "standard" encoding, anyone who opposes it is > >labeled a Luddite. Maybe. But there's quite a lot to be said for standards which lead to widespread availability of tools implementing them, both, open

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-21 Thread Nicolas Williams
On Fri, Jun 01, 2007 at 08:59:55PM +1000, James A. Donald wrote: > Many protocols use some form of self describing data format, for example > ASN.1, XML, S expressions, and bencoding. ASN.1 is not an encoding, and not all its encodings are self-describing. Specifically, PER is a compact encoding

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-21 Thread Will Morton
James A. Donald wrote: In the case of XML, yes there is a parsing engine, and if the structure of the DTD reflects the structure of the algorithm, then indeed it makes things much easier. But usually the committee have not thought about the algorithm, or have unresolved disagreements about

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-21 Thread Richard Salz
>Many protocols use some form of self describing data format, for example > ASN.1, XML, S expressions, and bencoding. I'm not sure what you're getting at. All XML and S expressions really get you is that you know how to skip past something you don't understand. This is also true for many (XER,

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-21 Thread Leichter, Jerry
| Many protocols use some form of self describing data format, for | example ASN.1, XML, S expressions, and bencoding. | | Why? | | Presumably both ends of the conversation have negotiated what protocol | version they are using (and if they have not, you have big problems) | and when they receive

RE: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-21 Thread Bowness, Piers
> On Friday, June 01, 2007 7:00 AM James A. Donald wrote: > > Many protocols use some form of self describing data format, for example > ASN.1, XML, S expressions, and bencoding. > > Why? > > Presumably both ends of the conversation have negotiated what protocol > version they are using (and if

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-21 Thread James A. Donald
James A. Donald wrote: Many protocols use some form of self describing data format, for example ASN.1, XML, S expressions, and bencoding. Why? Presumably both ends of the conversation have negotiated what protocol version they are using (and if they have not, you have big problems) and when the

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-11 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler
re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm27.htm#24 Why self describing data formats: for other archaeological trivia ... later i transferred from the science center to SJR and got to do some of the work on the original relational/sql implementation, System/R. a few years later, the "L" in GML also

Re: Why self describing data formats:

2007-06-11 Thread Anne & Lynn Wheeler
James A. Donald wrote: Many protocols use some form of self describing data format, for example ASN.1, XML, S expressions, and bencoding. Why? gml (precursor to sgml, html, xml, etc) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#sgml was invented at the science center in 1969 http://www.garli