That’s an interesting statement, because from my vantage point “longevity” seems to be way, way down the priority list for pretty much any technology in JavaScr

That’s an interesting statement, because from my vantage point “longevity” seems to be way, way down the priority list for pretty much any technology in JavaScript world. (The major exception being pure JSON.) It feels like if you open any JS codebase from more than 18 months ago, half the libraries will be deprecated or abandoned (not just the version, the entire library). Major patterns and frameworks reinvent themselves incompatibly on a biannual basis. The purpose of an RPC IDL (protobuf being a “modern” example) is that you define the interface and encoding in a way that will still be functional when your “standard language” is long forgotten or unrecognizably different.