On 27/09/2019 15:56, Lassi Kortela wrote:
>> Maybe LER should be the name of the textual format we're developing,
>> then.
>> Except it will make Lassi's marketing iinstincts go ding-ding-ding-ding.
>
> lol. Okay, you asked for it :)
>
> Techies often like to throw the baby out with the bathwater with
> marketing concerns. In fact, a lot of it just boils down to making sense
> and getting to the point.
>
> Take "Encoding Rules" for example. How is "encoding rules" different
> from "encoding"? Isn't all encoding about following rules? Instead of
> "ASCII" we could say "ASCII Encoding Rules". What would be the point?
>
> Since ASN.1 is useful solely for its encodings, we can drop "encoding"
> from the names too, since what else would most users want to deal with?
> Now we have "Basic ASN.1", "Distinguished ASN.1" and "Lisp ASN.1", which
> are things one can read without their eyes glazing over. (Well, "ASN.1"
> scans weirdly but let it be. At least it's the cool end of weird.)

*dons pedant hat*

ASN stands for Abstract Syntax Notation, and refers to the "schema
language" used to define types. ASN.1 looks like:

FooProtocol DEFINITIONS ::= BEGIN

    FooQuestion ::= SEQUENCE {
        trackingNumber INTEGER,
        question       IA5String
    }

    FooAnswer ::= SEQUENCE {
        questionNumber INTEGER,
        answer         BOOLEAN
    }

END

Actual *values* encoded by an Encoding Rules aren't ASN.1, so calling
them "Basic ASN.1" et al is misleading! However, it WOULD be correct to
call the "encoding rules" CONCERETE syntax notations, so "Basic CSN.1"
could be legit :-)

> "DER (Distinguished Encoding Rules) is a subset of BER providing for
> exactly one way to encode an ASN.1 value. DER is intended for situations
> when a unique encoding is needed. DER can be considered a canonical form
> of BER." --- The thing with the fancy name is more basic than the
> "basic" thing. And the "canonical" and "distinguished" encodings compete
> over who is more canonical. It's like old Coke and new Coke.

I once understand the distinction between DER and CER, but it escapes me
now...

Those kinds of standards (ASN.1 is a joint ITU-T / ISO standard) are
made in committee rooms by delegates sent from a mixture of national
standards bodies (that was my route, I as sent by the British Standards
Institute) and industrial stakeholders (big users of ASN.1 such as
telcos that do interesting protocol R&D using ASN.1 rather than just
buying off the shelf, makers of telco equipment that do similar, major
ASN.1 tool vendors, etc).

The result is driven by a mixture of individual goals, from my limited
observations:

1. Actually build some technology to do something!
2. Make sure this thing we've already built (perhaps as a secret
prototype) will meet the standard with the minimum of work so we can get
ahead in the market.
3. Pushing your favourite ideology, ranging from technical ("big
endian!") to actually political ("telecommunication networks should be
tightly controlled by the Party in order to stamp out dissent!")
4. Trying to stab your competitor in the back
5. Trying to stab an individual you have a grudge against in the back

...I didn't see much concern about *marketing* per se; most of these
standards are part of suites that will be forced on people by sheer
legislative power. The ostensible remit was to make the standards that
the telecoms networks of the world would use to interoperate between
national telecom networks. Anybody who wanted to take part in the phone
network had to follow the standards...

--
Alaric Snell-Pym   (M7KIT)
http://www.snell-pym.org.uk/alaric/