Carsten Bormann <cabo(_at_)tzi(_dot_)org> wrote:
The Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) is a data format
whose design goals include the possibility of extremely small code
size, fairly small message size, and extensibility without the need
for version negotiation. These design goals make it different from
earlier binary serializations such as ASN.1 and MessagePack, or other
binary serializations that may be created in the future.
I have a small problem with this abstract: the three goals that it picks
out are satisfied by MessagePack better than CBOR, since MessagePack is
simpler so will need even less code. As far as I can tell what makes CBOR
different from MessagePack is support for richer types, especially
strings. Streaming support is useful but it wasn't one of the original
goals.
Regarding PHB's criticisms of complexity: Type tags don't really need to
be part of the serialization format: they can be encoded in a simpler
format by the application. The advantage of doing so would be a more
direct translation into typical dynamic language data structures, and
better interop with JSON. The disadvantage is slightly more verbosity. You
would need a clear tagging convention to replace the syntactic framework.
Tony.
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