> The ability to view and interpret the protocol in a text editor is equivalent to the ability to view and interpret the protocol as output from a debugging tool or log file - except the tool can give you much more detail than the text file in a variety of ways. Text files are inferior, but they can be quicker/simpler, depending on what you're doing.
This is entirely false, as anyone who ever had to debug a malfunctioning http proxy or a misbehaving IMAP can tell you. Nothing beats netcat for a quick bug isolation test. As for the need for formal parsing, again it is true for production code, entirely false for sysops transient tasks.
Compare debugging a corba server with debugging http for a whiff of the he difference.
Tools aren't omnipresent. My miryad busybox embedded devices won't ever likely have a protocol analyzer. If I'm in need of one there, I'm done with.
This is entirely false, as anyone who ever had to debug a malfunctioning http proxy or a misbehaving IMAP can tell you. Nothing beats netcat for a quick bug isolation test. As for the need for formal parsing, again it is true for production code, entirely false for sysops transient tasks.
Compare debugging a corba server with debugging http for a whiff of the he difference.
Tools aren't omnipresent. My miryad busybox embedded devices won't ever likely have a protocol analyzer. If I'm in need of one there, I'm done with.