Unshaped Protos: Beyond Code Generation for Protocol Buffers
summary
Starts from Scala case classes and generates Protocol Buffers serializers and schemas instead of requiring .proto files; explores four implementations: manual (tedious), runtime reflection (works but very slow and fails at runtime), generic derivation with Shapeless HLists (compile-time, safer but slower due to boxing and rep conversions), and implicit macros that emit code at compile time. Built a macro-based ScalaPB extension that mostly matches hand-generated performance; measured with JMH benchmarks showing macros close to generated code and far faster than reflection.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Start
- 5:00The Basics: Serializing
- 6:34Protoless Protos
- 10:21Manual Definition
- 11:21Runtime Reflection
- 18:33Option 3: Inductive Implicit Search
- 24:54Option 3: Generic Derivation
- 33:37Option 4: Implicit Macros
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