Hi,
Many protocols use some form of "terse mnemonic" text encoding. "Printable" symbols or tokens are chosen for their mnemonic value.
Depending on one's point of view, These protocols can be viewed as binary encoded or text encoded. Hopefully, a compromise can be arrived at.
Binary and Text encoding camps are arguing for their personal choice of tools.
A tie breaker may be how we propose to encode multi-byte numeric quantities. Big Endian, Little Endian, etc.
I would imagine that those proposing text encoding might be quicker to reach an agreement, than those proposing binary encoding. Unless those proposing binary encoding are all willing to agree upon something like External Data Representation (XDR) RFC's 1014, 1790, and 1832 by Sun Microsystems.
Danny Cohen, "On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace", IEEE Computer, October 1981. I have not read this, but it sounded appropriate!
Thanks, Gary Lehecka LeheckGR@BP.Com BP 250 - 3671 US ( 216 ) 586 - 3671