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by IshKebab 194 days ago
Literally every schema-based serialisation format does this. ASN.1 is a pretty terrible option.

The best system for this I've ever used was Thrift, which properly abstracts data formats, transports and so on.

https://thrift.apache.org/docs/Languages.html

Unfortunately Thrift is a dead (AKA "Apache") project and it doesn't seem like anyone since has tried to do this. It probably didn't help that there are so many gaps in that support matrix. I think "Google have made a thing! Let's blindly use it!" also helped contribute to its downfall, despite Thrift being better than Protobuf (it even supports required fields!).

Actually I just took a look at the Thrift repo and there are a surprising number of commits from a couple of people consistently, so maybe it's not quite as dead as I thought. You never hear about people picking it for new projects though.
3 comments
computably 193 days ago
FB maintains a distinct version of Thrift from the one they gave to Apache. fbthrift is far from dead as it's actively used across FB. However in typical FB fashion it's not supported for external use, making it open source in name (license) only.

As an interesting historical note, Thrift was inspired by Protobuf.

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mrbnprck 193 days ago
Very true. ASN.1 is mostly not a great fit, yet has been the choice for everything to do with certificates and telecommunication protocols (even the newer ones like 5G for things like RRC AND NGAP) Mostly for bit-level support and especially long-term stability. * and looking back in time ASN.1 has definetly proven its LTS.

actually never heard of thrift until today, thanks for the insight :)

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p_l 193 days ago
Honestly, first time I've seen someone praising Thrift in a long time.

Wanted to do unspeakable and evil things to people responsible to choosing it as well as its authors last time I worked on a project that used Thrift extensively.

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IshKebab 193 days ago
How come? I haven't used it for like a decade but I remember it being good.
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p_l 193 days ago
Lot of network issues coming from Thrift RPC runtime apparently not handling anything well.

I recall threatening I'll rewrite everything with ONC-RPC out of pure pettiness and wish to see the network stack not go crazy.

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