3 ms·

> Google's implementations, at least C++ and Java, are a bunch of bloated crap (or maybe they're very good, but for a use case that I haven't yet encountered).

> Google's implementations, at least C++ and Java, are a bunch of bloated crap (or maybe they're very good, but for a use case that I haven't yet encountered). Right, they were designed for use in Google's servers, where binary size is mostly irrelevant, while speed and features (e.g. reflection) are valued. "Lite mode" (not mentioned in the article, for some reason) optimizes for code size instead. Admittedly, it's not as small as an implementation written from scratch with minimal code footprint as the main goal, but it does cut the size quite a bit... (Disclaimer: I wrote those C++ and Java implementations, but that was 10-15 years ago, things may have changed in the meantime...)

girvo 6y ago
HN is one of the few places you can talk smack about a companies tooling and have the person who wrote it reply! Lite mode is neat, I hadn’t seen that. That’s super useful for my use case, cheers. Any gotchas with it to be aware of?
- kentonv 6y ago
  > Any gotchas with it to be aware of? Lots, unfortunately. E.g. you can't stringify objects for debug printing, because stringification is implemented in terms of reflection.
- tailspin2019 6y ago
  > HN is one of the few places you can talk smack about a companies tooling and have the person who wrote it reply! Not just that, I suspect it’s a sign of HN’s unique culture that the “smack talk” seems not to be taken personally and instead a highly nuanced and interesting discussion ensues!