http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660Just my plug for protobuf-net: [http://code.google.com/p/protobuf-net/](http://code.google.com/p/protobuf-net/) Re attributes - note that the current work I'm doing will allow POCO support within protobuf-net, which is (IMO) the more .NET-idiomatic approach. The data on the wire is **fully** compatible with other protocol buffers implementations, plus it supports some things that the others don't, while still retaining wire compatibility. Inheritance being the most obvious. http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment8http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment8Sat, 16 May 2009 10:18:54 GMTActually there is an API for generating .proto files for such classes, so there are no problems while integrating with other protobuf libs (well I actually tested only one that is for Java and assumed that the rest will work ;). I've choosen attributes over .proto files because, well, it's more convenient for me, but of course each project has it's own requirements. Another thing I like about protobuf-net is that collections (the ones that are declared as 'repeat') can be mapped to dictionaries, lists (even generic ones) without any problem which is so much nicer than using arrays. Anyway I consider PB a great stuff, it's a lot faster than normal binary serialization (one can however cry about not preserving CLR type information) and it greatly improves interoperability. http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment7http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment7Mon, 11 May 2009 18:20:35 GMTMarciej, The problem is that then you are not compatible with other protobuf impl (unless you can generate the proto from the classes). More important, you are also requiring something that we don't want, attributes. There is also the issue of human readability http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment6http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment6Mon, 11 May 2009 17:05:54 GMTproto files can be omitted - I use probobuf-net. The only thing you need to do to make ProtoBuff serializable class is decorate it with appropriate attributes :) http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment5http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment5Mon, 11 May 2009 16:36:51 GMTconfigurator, cross platform, stable for versioning, small, fast to deserialize http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment4http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment4Mon, 11 May 2009 12:17:22 GMTRafal, No, that would mean a lot more pain for the developers, needing to deal with the proto files. http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment3http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment3Mon, 11 May 2009 12:15:35 GMTHow is the protobuf protocol better than binary serialization, JSON, etc.? http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment2http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment2Mon, 11 May 2009 11:31:57 GMTAyende, maybe you should consider Protocol Buffers as message serialization format for Rhino Service Bus? http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment1http://ayende.com/4004/nh-prof-persistence-format#comment1Mon, 11 May 2009 07:25:21 GMT