It's a standard for encoding data over streams like TCP. If you recieve "00 4a 33 2b" over TCP, you have no idea what it means. But if you have a codebook or la

It's a standard for encoding data over streams like TCP. If you recieve "00 4a 33 2b" over TCP, you have no idea what it means. But if you have a codebook or language defined to understand that data, you'll understand it means "Meet me on the first floor in half an hour". Blink is: - A meta-language for defining such languages - A specification of how messages in these languages are turned into binary data and back. When both client and server know the definitions (written in the meta-language), they can determine which kind of message the other side is using because of the metadata sent with the message (their "message type system") without the need for any extra information, like a HTTP content-type header.