IPP>PRO: sorry, binary is better (?)

[Sylvan Butler]

>> That is what I was thinking on Tuesday 6/17, but actually doing 
>> something with it and covering all the possibilities with ASCII seems 
>> noticably more complex to implement and to test, and for no apparent 
>> benefit.
>
>There are many of us (most of us??) who do not believe the statement
>that "ASCII seems noticably more complex to implement and to test".


When there is more code containing more loops and more conditionals 
the testing of that code is more complex.


>Furthermore, we do not believe the statement of "for no apparent
>benefit".


Let's discuss these benefits.  I suggest a thread with "benefits of 
ASCII" in the subject line, but this thread will probably suffice.


>Again I must ask:  what are we doing in IPP that is fundamentally
>different than other web-oriented transactions utilizing HTTP?  Others


HTTP is used to transfer a lot of binary material (primarily, 
according to the stats on a small proxy cache I run).  We are 
primarily binary material.




>have not found a need to degenerate to binary encodings, so why should


"degenerate"?  What is the term for that rhetorical technique...




>Staying in a text-only domain leverages the many text-based development
>tools prevalent in today's web-centric environments that span the


Good.  I like that benefit.  I can see how it might be important.


Will those tools deal with precise delimiters in specific
quantities, combined with length-preceded chunks of binary data
which may contain various delimiters (as defined by 6/17)?  And
those same tools are unable to deal with binary encodings?


sdb


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