Subject: Re: corba or sockets? From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.net> Date: 31 Oct 2000 18:50:58 +0000 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3182007058087258@naggum.net> * Lieven Marchand | If you want to see protocol design gone berserk, try ASN.1. ASN.1 is not a protocol design. It's a data description language. The full name is Abstract Syntax Notation #1. It does no more than define structures that are named and identified by mutual agreement. To use ASN.1, you have to choose some encoding rules, and there are unfortunately too many of them, but the Basic and Distinguished Encoding Rules are actually OK. (C programmers hate them, because they make life so much harder in an untyped language like theirs, but if you know what kinds of objects you get, as in dynamic types, you can easily deal with these things.) | They haven't solved any of the real problems but they added heaps of | complexity in the process. I can't agree with your assessment. Would you like to explain what you consider the real problems they have not solved and what the heaps of complexity added have been? | Unfortunately, it's caught on in some part of the IETF world, so I'm | considering writing some tools in CL to make it livable. I'm surprised that you haven't, already. ASN.1 is about typed data. It does not live well in a "typed variable" approach to programming. #:Erik -- Does anyone remember where I parked Air Force One? -- George W. Bush