DISCLAIMER: This is not a jab on all the developers out there that are building ASN protocols. I empathize with you. It’s really more about how we’ve taken complexity of software for granted while we really ought to be working towards simplifying things.
I’m mostly writing this as I really need a place to jot down what little I know about ASN. Every time I revisit ASN time to time, I find myself pouring over 10,000 documents trying to remember the subtleties of BER, DER, PER encodings. First of all, ASN is nuts. Second of all it’s seriously retarded b0rken. Did I already mention, it’s nuts? I love the way Richard Feynman provides the absolutely simplest explanation for the most complex problem in hand. When you want talk about soap bubbles, talk about bubbles, not about an enchanting, hollow, spherical translucent thing that has a certain surface tension with rainbows on top for good measure. There’s another simple acronym for this: K.I.S.S.
