Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2016 18:10:08 -0400
From: Peter Todd <pete@petertodd.org>
To: Luke Dashjr <luke@dashjr.org>,
	Bitcoin Protocol Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Message-ID: <20160621221008.GB10196@fedora-21-dvm>
References: <CAJowKg+zYtUnHv+ea--srehVa5K46sjpWbHVcVGRY5x0w5XRTQ@mail.gmail.com>
	<201606212044.38931.luke@dashjr.org>
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In-Reply-To: <201606212044.38931.luke@dashjr.org>
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Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Even more proposed BIP extensions to BIP 0070
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On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 08:44:37PM +0000, Luke Dashjr via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> On Monday, June 20, 2016 5:33:32 PM Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev wrote:
> > BIP 0070 has been a a moderate success, however, IMO:
> >=20
> > - protocol buffers are inappropriate since ease of use and extensibilit=
y is
> > desired over the minor gains of efficiency in this protocol.  Not too l=
ate
> > to support JSON messages as the standard going forward
>=20
> IMO JSON is too prone to gratuitous inefficiency (both at network and CPU=
=20
> level), parser bugs, etc. Even the best C implementation (jansson) has se=
rious=20
> issues with Number handling.
>=20
> A few years ago, I looked into binary alternatives to JSON and concluded =
they=20
> all had problems, while it seems more than reasonable to do even dynamic=
=20
> parsing of protobuf messages. So to conclude, I prefer to stick to protob=
uf=20
> unless a clearly superior protocol turns up.

I'll second that statement.

Ease of use isn't a very good criteria for security-critical software handl=
ing
money, and the JSON standard has a very large amount of degrees of freedom =
in
how people have implemented it historically. Even protobuf I'd personally a=
void
using on that basis, as protobuf encoding isn't deterministic: you can enco=
de
the same data in multiple ways.

Unfortunately there isn't a viable alternative, so we're probably stuck with
protobuf right now for standards that want to see wide adoption in the near
future; I've got a few projects that need an alternative, which I'm working=
 on,
but that's a ways off.

--=20
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org

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