[blasdel]

Of course you can implement custom type-tagged blobs, but that's not using thrift or protobufs -- it's your own nebulous SOAP-style bullshit.

[antonovka2]

They're not "blobs" if they are also protobuf/thrift messages themselves.

[blasdel]

That's certainly cleverer, but it's still a nested user-implemented unsound type-system.