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Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 10:08:31 +0200
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From: Wladimir <laanwj@gmail.com>
To: Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock.name>
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Cc: Bitcoin Dev <bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Proposal: allocate 8 service bits for
 experimental use
Precedence: list

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 10:02 AM, Matt Whitlock <bip@mattwhitlock.name> wrote:
> On Tuesday, 17 June 2014, at 9:57 am, Wladimir wrote:
>> Yes, as I said in the github topic
>> (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/4351) I suggest we adapt a
>> string-based name space for extensions.
>
> Why use textual strings? These fields are not for human consumption. Why not use UUIDs, which are fixed length and will not waste as much bandwidth in the protocol? Or if you'd prefer a hierarchical namespace, you could use OIDs, a la ASN.1.

Come on, this is only sent over the line at connection time at most
once. No need to overdesign a scheme here.

Anyhow, if we like to bike-shed so much:
- UUIDs are 16 bytes -- most human-recognizable strings are shorter.
And they're ugly to use as well.
- OIDs need central and hierarchical coordination, just what we're
trying to avoid.

Wladimir