From: "Luke-Jr" <luke@dashjr.org>
To: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2011 13:15:24 -0500
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Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] [BIP 15] Aliases
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On Monday, December 19, 2011 12:04:34 PM Jordan Mack wrote:
> I still think HTTPS should be used, at the minimum. Using HTTPS is
> standard to every website out there that deals with financials, even if
> it is not a perfect system. Why should Bitcoin adopt a more lax policy
> than everyone else?

Sure, I meant HTTP as the underlying protocol.
TLS/SSL should of course be required in some form.

> I thought that JSON support was fairly common these days. I personally
> prefer XML in most cases, but since JSON is already used with the RPC,
> it seemed like a natural fit here. 

JSON-RPC won't go on forever. In any case, bitcoind's use of JSON-RPC is 
exactly why I (and many other developers) have come to the realization how 
poorly supported JSON really is. Most of the common languages do have a 
library, but almost all of them have one issue or another (particularly around 
the very undefined Number type).

XML shares the same binary-data problem as JSON, too.
As slush mentioned, no additional serialization is necessary anyway.

> Binary data can be base64 encoded, although I'm not sure why you would need
> to send back binary in an alias response.

Because computers work with binary. I don't think anyone wants to implement a 
fully functional script assembler just to send funds.

> What exactly do you mean by "custom output script"?

This suggests you need to learn more about how Bitcoin works ;)
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Script