[cryptonector]

I have looked at that second reference[0] (your reference [9]). That's a paper from 1994! The ASN.1 Information Object System was brand new, as well as parametrization, and the paper does make use of them. That paper does not even reference any of the ASN.1 specifications(!) -- this is infuriating but understandable given that those ITU-T specs were not freely accessible back then, which is even more infuriating, but still, you'd expect academics to still include references to them, and even to purchase access.

More importantly, there are NO conclusions in [0] (your [9]) that would support your dismissal of ASN.1. On the contrary, I would think it's the opposite. My conclusion is that you did not read your own references and did not do the research you should have done. This is, of course, par for the course in this sub-field of computer science. Everyone seems to always think they know better without actually making sure that they do. Some of this, of course, is due to the sheer cognitive load of the literature to which you and everyone else seem eager to add without doing anything to make it easier on the rest of us. You've taken the easy, lazy path. I'm not expecting you to do a full survey of IDLs, and I'm not expecting you to look at ASN.1 and say "aha! they have all the answers", but I am expecting you to have more than no idea about it when you reference it, or if you're going to use a reference as authoritative for some statement, make sure that it actually is.

If I've made a mistake chasing down references, please let me know. I'm eager to understand why you reject ASN.1. I'm particularly interested in what it is missing or does badly. Thanks.

[0] http://people.cs.vt.edu/~kafura/PreviousPapers/asn1++-ulpaa9...