Protobuf Backend

[malarinv]

Is there any plan to add protobuf/flatbuffer backend support?

[timbod7]

It has always been my intention to add binary serialization support. However to date, json serialization has been appropriate for the projects where ADL has been used.

A challenge with binary serialization is that there are many tradeoffs to be balanced:

• optimization for serialized data size
• optimization of serialization speed (zero copies?)
• serialized data backward compatibility guarantees

etc. Different use cases are going to have different requirements. Choosing just between protobuf/flatbuffer will depend on requirements.

In principle ADL could support both of these, and other binary formats, but it is a significant effort to implement multiple formats across multiple target languages.

[gmhta]

@malarinv what is you use case? How much mileage would you get out of an adl -> protobuf generator?