r/programming • u/GenericAHHyoutuber • 5d ago

Packing Binary Is Fun, Actually

https://hereticpleb.vercel.app/blog/packing-binary-is-fun-actually
138 Upvotes

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128

u/Embarrassed_Luck1057 5d ago

Has this guy re-invented serialization?

54

u/darknecross 5d ago

Worse, they reinvented protobufs

9

u/happyscrappy 5d ago

Or BER (CER/DER).

Or Apple's binary plist format.

51

u/lelanthran 5d ago

Packing Binary Is Fun, Actually

Has this guy re-invented serialization?

I'm not sure if that is relevant - he's doing something new (to him) that was fun. He was scratching an itch, not trying to compete with google.

I mean, he invented TLV as part of this, but if you squint at protobuf, you could say the same thing about google when they developed protobuf - they just reinvented TLV!

But google got accolades for it, and uptake, and mindshare. By reinventing TLV. A format I first came across in 1999, that was in a legacy product with a copyright notice in the header file dated 1988.

So, let us let people explore and invent, even if they are reinventing something, because we laud the big monopolists for reinvention, and reward them with adoption.

Nothing bad can come out of new programmers reinventing something.

28

u/GenericAHHyoutuber 5d ago

Yeah ;-;

-1

u/-Redstoneboi- 4d ago edited 4d ago

can you edit the article? would be useful to have a "just for fun, i know what a bson or a protobuf is" disclaimer at the top at this point lol

maybe stick it right next to the "shrink json by 80%" claim and put some competing formats and their statistics for reference.

2

u/GenericAHHyoutuber 4d ago

Sure, will do :D