Re: comment on reducing padding (Re: Re: libfastmint update 20040915)

Justin Guyett wrote:
> Why should they have a hashcash binary?  Any embedded system without a
> compiler then has to be supplied with a hashcash binary by whatever
> entity compiles the rest of the system.

yes.  That's normally how these things work.  We are providing a 
standard library or command line tool to generate the hashcash stamp. 
If you want to use the services, you need to have the library.  Same 
argument could be had for TCP stacks, memory management, math functions, 
or configuration file access.

> Knowledge of and modification to the stamp format should not be required
> at all in order to measure the raw (version 0 style) value of the stamp.

but the version 0 style is deprecated as far as I know.


> Is there a good reason to standardize padding in the last field?  Why
> not let the generator do whatever it wants, including omitting the
> counter field entirely?
> 
> I think it's a bad idea to force people to use unnecessarily complex
> implementations.

the complexity comes from the need for speed.  If we can gain a 
significant performance improvement with padding, then we should take 
advantage of that because if we don't, spammers will.

---eric