Doing unto JSON what...

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

Years ago I hoped that programmers would move away from XML and toward 
formats that were a better fit for the kinds of messages they wanted to 
send between specific kinds of senders.  I pointed to ASN.1 as a binary 
option (though never one I could make work), and was happy to see JSON 
emerge as a simpler text-based format for many kinds of messages.

Today, this one seems to keep coming across my Twitter feed, even from 
people reporting that they're using it.

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MessagePack: It's like JSON. but fast and small.

MessagePack is an efficient binary serialization format. It lets you 
exchange data among multiple languages like JSON but it's faster and 
smaller. For example, small integers (like flags or error code) are 
encoded into a single byte, and typical short strings only require an 
extra byte in addition to the strings themselves.

If you ever wished to use JSON for convenience (storing an image with 
metadata) but could not for technical reasons (encoding, size, 
speed...), MessagePack is a perfect replacement.

http://msgpack.org/
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There's support in lots of languages, though I haven't had time to play. 
  I suspect a few folks here might still be interested.

Thanks,
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
http://simonstl.com/