Data serialization is the process of converting structured data into a format that can be stored or transmitted and then reconstructed later. It's a critical aspect of software development, enabling communication between different systems and persistence of data across sessions.
I spent all day debugging an issue with data serialization between our microservices, only to discover that someone had changed the schema version in the Python client but forgot to update the Java server. 🤦♂️
When the CTO asked why the new feature was taking so long, I had to explain that data serialization across our legacy systems was like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole - not impossible, but it requires a lot of painful reshaping. 😫
Schema evolution in Avro, Protocol Buffers and Thrift - This blog post dives into how popular data serialization formats handle schema changes without breaking compatibility between producers and consumers.
Enterprise Integration Using REST - While not directly about data serialization, this article discusses the challenges of standardizing data representation across enterprises and recommends using bounded contexts to manage linguistic boundaries.
Object Collaboration Design - This collection of articles explores various aspects of object collaboration, dependency management, and refactoring, which are all relevant when dealing with data serialization in complex systems.
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