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by sergiosgc
4726 days ago
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Those who do not know History are doomed to repeat it. Back in the day of the OSI stack, the telecom guys were huge fans of binary protocols. The arguments were exactly those described here on HN: they're easier to implement; with the right tooling, they're just as readable; they're more efficient. The fact is, on the application layer, text based protocols wiped the floor with binary protocols. The answer is in the little details, which everyone knows is where the devil spends its time. They are not easier to implement, because they're more difficult to debug (and because text parsers are, let's be honest, a solved problem); they are not as readable, because debug tooling is never perfectly implemented and never ever present in every system; they are more efficient, but at this layer the efficiency does not pay off (i.e. the size of the HTTP header leading that 5MB image does not really matter). One of the comments here pulled a comparison I did not remember any more: SS7 vs SIP. Go and have a look at both protocols. They are both mature, so you don't really need to wait for the fantastic debug tooling to appear. Study both ecosystems and then form your opinion on binary vs text application protocols. |
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Do you remember the OSI binary protocols as designed back in the day?
ASN.1 as far as the eye could see. OIDs. MIBs. Loosely defined extensibility. Terrible, complex protocol designs.
This had nothing to do with the protocols being binary or text; the protocols themselves were painfully complex, making it difficult and frustrating to write a working implementation, much less a complete and interoperating implementations.
> ... at this layer the efficiency does not pay off (i.e. the size of the HTTP header leading that 5MB image does not really matter).
"I don't care about RTT time, the lack of bidirectional communication, and the inability to inline binary data in the protocol stream" ... said no mobile/wireless/desktop developer, ever.
> One of the comments here pulled a comparison I did not remember any more: SS7 vs SIP.
I've implemented SIP. It was a massive hassle because it was text-based and annoying and difficult to parse. The available SIP libraries tend to be buggy and incomplete, and people actually pay for workable SIP stacks. I'd rather not look at SIP ever again.
That isn't to say SS7 is better, it doesn't appear to be. As far as I can tell, that's because it was badly designed, not because of a flaw inherent in using binary encodings.