Survey on serialization formats

serialization-formats-survey.md

http://msgpack.org/

• No schema
• Binary representation (NOT READABLE)
• Fast implementation
• Compatible with JSON (in terms of data primitives)
• Discussion: https://gist.github.com/frsyuki/2908191

https://github.com/google/protobuf

• Has a schema
• Serialized data is not self-descriptive (every site must agree upon a schema)
• No polymorphism/inheritance/subtyping
• Binary format (not human readable)
• Against: http://techtraits.com/noproto/
• For: http://blog.codeclimate.com/blog/2014/06/05/choose-protocol-buffers/

https://capnproto.org/

• Improves Protobuf
• Includes RPC library
• Has schema
• Binary format (not human readable)

Example of data-format exchange:

• https://code.google.com/p/protobuf-java-format/

Discussions:

• http://leopard.in.ua/2013/10/13/binary-serialization-formats/
• http://spin.atomicobject.com/2011/11/23/binary-serialization-tour-guide/
• https://www.igvita.com/2011/08/01/protocol-buffers-avro-thrift-messagepack/

Alternatives:

• PSON: https://github.com/dcodeIO/ProtoBuf.js/wiki/ProtoBuf.js-vs-JSON
• BSON: http://bsonspec.org/