With the advent of distributed applications, the messaging between one component to another has become all too prominent. There are a lot of middleware mechanisms to do so. Tibco EMS, ZMQ, etc. I have worked on projects involving a few of such mechanisms. All have their own positives and negatives depending on the problem at hand.
While communicating between components, we need data units to be sent to and fro. What those data units will be? You might have used xml units send across. Remember how cumbersome was to write parsing code at both places. And if the components are written in different languages (Java and C++ say), then it becomes all too messy. Writing receivers at both ends and parsing logic too. Handling exceptions and what not.
Some might have used json. Programmers of the old might remember Serialization/De-serialization and sending Java as a whole. But what to do when other component is not in Java? Again it becomes messy.
Well Google Protobuf's is one such endeavour to put those issues to an end.
Google provides libraries for various programming languages. A .proto file is created (looks somewhat like json, but not all too much), in which we can define structured data structure of the Object to be move to and fro. The same proto file can be compiled in different languages into class objects.
These classes can now be used simply, Call setters and populate the object. Send it across. Easy de-serialization at other end, and we get local language specific Object. Call getters and get the data.
Thus a Java Object created Serialized, Sent Across, Received, De-Serialized as C++ Object.
Thus from messy history, this seems like a fresh breeze. Doesn't it?
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