Cost/Difficulty to implement serialization of C++/Javascript?

[kairoswater-jason]

This is the only place I see to ask this question. Let me know if I have posted in the wrong spot. The community chatroom associated with this project looks pretty dead.

I see that the NLnet foundation sponsored the implementation of serialization support for Java/Python (https://nlnet.nl/project/Kaitai-Serialization/). We are a company that is looking to estimate the cost or amount of work needed to implement serialization on C++/Java.

Particularly, we are seeking to find out:

• the approximate amount that NLnet contributed to make serialization happen originally
• an estimated cost to sponsor one of the team members to make this feature addition
• who implemented this feature last time (I'm sure we could dig though our copy of commit logs)
• the estimated number of hours and lead time

Also open to technical discussion of how to accomplish this.

• Looks like C++ might actually support _write() already? I see reference in the docs, but don't see much in source.
• Is there any existing test suit for writing on Java/Python that could be extended to work with C++/Javascript
• Has serialization been merged with main? If not, what is blocking it?

I make no guarantees about how we will handle this. We might sponsor the feature addition, we might do it ourselves, or we might even abandon the effort if it is too difficult or expensive.

[generalmimon]

@kairoswater-jason I've just sent you an e-mail. I would discuss the organizational stuff by e-mail and the technical stuff here.

[JocelynLoft]

Has there been any follow-up on that topic? We are also interested

[generalmimon]

@JocelynLoft:

Has there been any follow-up on that topic?

I got an answer that they were going to "investigate cheaper/faster options" - fair enough, especially C++ won't be that easy.

Of course, eventually we would like to get serialization to all languages, but at the moment no one is working on it to my knowledge, so it will probably not happen for a few years (however, serialization in Go and C# - compiler, runtime is said to be in some state of development, but I haven't looked at these personally, so I can't judge how far the efforts are).

[JocelynLoft]

Thanks for the feedback, could we discuss in DM the cost of a C++ implementation?