> Do you assume they just came one morning and decided to write PB without taking a look at what existed?

Considering how bad an imitation of 1984 ASN.1 PB's IDL is, and how bad an imitation of 1984 DER PB is, yes I assume that PB's creators did not in fact know ASN.1 well. They almost certainly knew of ASN.1, and they almost certainly did not know enough about it because all the worst mistakes in ASN.1 PB re-created while adding zero new ideas or functionality. It's a terrible shame.

PB is not a bad imitation of 1984 ASN.1. ASN.1 is choke full of useless representations clearly there to serve what a committee thought the need of the telco industry should be.

I find it funny you are making it looks like a good and pleasant to use IDL. It’s a perfect example of design by committee at its worst.

PB is significantly more space efficient than DER by the way.