Protobuf
Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) is a language-neutral, platform-neutral extensible mechanism for serializing structured data, developed by Google. It uses a schema definition language to define data structures, which are then compiled into code for various programming languages to efficiently serialize and deserialize data. Protobuf is designed to be smaller, faster, and simpler than alternatives like XML or JSON for data interchange in distributed systems.
Developers should learn and use Protobuf when building high-performance, scalable distributed systems, microservices, or APIs where efficient data serialization and low latency are critical, such as in real-time applications, IoT devices, or large-scale data processing pipelines. It is particularly valuable in environments with bandwidth constraints or when interoperability between multiple programming languages is required, as it generates type-safe code and ensures backward and forward compatibility through schema evolution.