"Protocol Buffers" for Tango & Phobos ??

[Lars Ivar Igesund]

Nick B wrote:

> Hi
> 
> I came across this the other day, and no one has mentioned this, on this
> news group before, I thought I would bring the subject to the
> communities attention, so to speak.

That is well and fine, but you shouldn't hijack a thread for it, rather
start a new one.

> Google has very recently, open sourced "Protocol Buffers".
> 
> What is it you ask ?  In a couple of lines it is a language-neutral,
> platform-neutral, extensible way of serializing structured data for use
> in communications protocols, data storage, and more.
> 
> Think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler.
> 
> Why not just use XML ?
> 
> Protocol buffers have many advantages over XML for serializing
> structured data.  Protocol buffers:
> * are simpler
> * are 3 to 10 times smaller
> * are 20 to 100 times faster

Not necessarily a valid point if you use the right parser, say, one from
Tango.

> * are less ambiguous
> * generate data access classes that are easier to use programmatically.
> 
> PB supports Java, Python,and C++ currently.
> 
> A more detailed overview can be found here:
> http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/docs/overview.html
> 
> and the FAQ here:
> http://code.google.com/apis/protocolbuffers/docs/faq.html
> 
> See the answer to the question "Can I add support for a new language to
> protocol buffers?" inside the FAQ.
> 
> Some Tips and comments can be found here:
> http://zunger.livejournal.com/164024.html
> 
> 
> My questions.
> Does the D community see this of interest ?
> Is this something they might use ?
> Do they see value in it being added to the respective
> Tango or Phobos frameworks ?

If the protocol is widely used, then it would certainly be beneficial to
support it, and I would assume that it is fairly easy to implement on top
of Tango. 

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango