Protocol Buffers, Avro, Thrift & MessagePack - igvita.com: "erhaps one of the first inescapable observations that a new Google developer (Noogler) makes once they dive into the code is that Protocol Buffers (PB) is the 'language of data' at Google. Put simply, Protocol Buffers are used for serialization, RPC, and about everything in between.
Initially developed in early 2000's as an optimized server request/response protocol (hence the name), they have become the de-facto data persistence format and RPC protocol. Later, following a major (v2) rewrite in 2008, Protocol Buffers was open sourced by Google and now, through a number of third party extensions, can be used across dozens of languages - including Ruby, of course.
But, Protocol Buffers for everything? Well, it appears to work for Google, but more importantly I think this is a great example of where understanding the historical context in which each was developed is just as instrumental as comparing features and benchmarking speed."
