Information exchange and encoding messages

For the encoding of messages to be exchanged in automation systems the red pencil tactics are still too often used, in the opinion: The shorter the message, the better. Is that what we really are looking for? Read the imposing joke on encoding.

Saving a few octets was one of the objectives of the definition of hundreds of solutions for communication protocols for automation systems - focusing on getting rid of some octets. Now with the use of secure TCP/IP based communication tunneling the many "old" protocols adds many times more octets at several layers than those saved in the  design of the "optimized" application protocols. Saving a few octets in the application protocols has a negligible effect! Some people that complained about the ASN.1 BER encoding years ago are now asking for Webservices with XML encoding - increasing the message lengths by orders of magnitude!

For every problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong.

One lesson learned is: Focus on the applications, information to be exchanged, information exchange services, and the engineering process to get interoperable devices that can smoothly inter-operate - don't discuss saving a few bits in the application protocol encoding.