Re: Please stop everybody!
Might I recommend, looking at ruby, specifically pack and unpack.
Lots of good examples of usage https://blog.bigbinary.com/2011/07/20/ruby-pack-unpack.html
binary_data = "\x05\x00\x68\x65\x6c\x6c\x6f"
length, message = binary_data.unpack("Sa*")
# [5, "hello"]
https://www.rubyguides.com/2017/01/read-binary-data/
Biting the hand that feeds IT
