Trying to standardize binary as a flexible and general purpose interchange format is unwise IMO. UDP and TCP (and other protocols at that level) are about as fa

Trying to standardize binary as a flexible and general purpose interchange format is unwise IMO. UDP and TCP (and other protocols at that level) are about as far as we can standardize binary formats - This is as specific as they can be whilst still being generally applicable to a wide range of use cases. My problem with ProtoBuf is that you can't impose more a more rigid structure and get more compatibility at the same time. A more rigid (statically typed) structure is inherently less compatible/interoperable (requires more integration effort, not less; harder to debug, not human readable, not searchable etc... More integration effort = less compatible, less interoperable).