[Cryptography] encoding formats should not be committee'ized

[Stephan Neuhaus]

On 2013-10-03 09:49, Peter Gutmann wrote:
> Jerry Leichter <leichter at lrw.com> writes:
> 
>> My favorite more recent example of the pitfalls is TL1, a language and
>> protocol used to managed high-end telecom equipment.  TL1 has a completely
>> rigorous syntax definition, but is supposed to be readable.
> 
> For those not familiar with TL1, "supposed to be readable" here means "encoded
> in ASCII rather than binary".  It's about as readable as EDIFACT and HL7.

Then that puts it in the same category as HBCI version 1.  Sure, it was
rigorous.  Sure, it was unambiguous.  Sure, it was ASCII-encoded.  But
human-readable?  I implemented that protocol once, and can assert that,
after reading more HBCI messages than was probably good for me, I felt
decidedly less than human.

Fun,

Stephan