Very neat article. I too have spent countless hours (but not as many) hacking on an ASN.1 compiler, adding a subset of X.681, X.682, X.683 functionality to make it possible to -in a single codec invocation!- a whole certificate, with all its details like extensions and OtherName SANs and what not decoded recursively. So it's very nice to see a post about similar work!
ASN.1 really is quite awesome. It gets a lot of hate, but it's not deserved. ASN.1 is not just a syntax or set of encoding rules -- it's a type system, and a very powerful one at that.
ASN.1 really is quite awesome. It gets a lot of hate, but it's not deserved. ASN.1 is not just a syntax or set of encoding rules -- it's a type system, and a very powerful one at that.