[noise] Spec revision 32

[Jason A. Donenfeld]

On Fri, May 19, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Alex <alex at centromere.net> wrote:
> That solution couples the *meaning* of the `e` token with some
> arbitrary string provided by the user (the handshake name), which I
> argue is worse, because now I have to validate that the user didn't
> make a mistake by forgetting to add "psk" to the pattern name after they
> add a `psk` token -- which requires me to perform a static analysis
> anyway.
>
> Or I could just require that the user not make any mistakes and provide
> no degree of safety whatsoever.

I believe the intention behind named handshakes is to not allow the
user to provide the pattern in the first place, and instead simply
give a menu of preexisting named handshakes.

If you're going to depart from this and allow the user to provide
arbitrary token sequences, you'll need to scan the whole thing,
anyway, to ensure that various other pattern validity rules aren't
being violated. In that case, too, you'll learn about the existence of
psk.