It does seem unfortunate that what's apparently (given its name) the 'default' base64 crate for Rust can't expose a simpler interface. Most people don't need op

It does seem unfortunate that what's apparently (given its name) the 'default' base64 crate for Rust can't expose a simpler interface. Most people don't need optimally efficient base64 encoding. It should suffice to expose 'encode' and 'decode' functions that take some parameters configuring the encoding. That's not to say that the more complex design of this library is necessarily bad, just that it seems to be motivated by goals that won't be relevant to most people who just want to encode a smallish blob. Maybe this illustrates why it's good to have base64 in a language's stdlib. That way 90% of people can just use a couple of simple functions, while libraries like this can still exist for those who really need them.