Custom binary formats demand precise control and manual mappings
Developers encoding custom binary layouts want control over the exact wire representation, but common formats can feel too opinionated. Derived values such as counts may require developers to provide both forward and inverse mappings themselves. The signals also point to requests for mapping native types to encodings and preserving encoding metadata, though a first product should focus on the shared schema-and-codec workflow.
For developers building custom binary formats. Mentioned from Sep 2016 to Apr 2025 on GitHub and Hacker News.
4 different people described this problem in 4 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 4.0/10
- Pain
- 5.5/10
- Frequency
- 5.8/10
- Willingness to pay
- 0.0/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Professionals
- Competition
- High
- Build difficulty
- High
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
What if "numfiles" is complex expression we cannot derive automatically? We shift responsibility to a user and to be able serialize he must to provide both forward and inverse mappings for such expressions, except simple cases when they can be derived automatically
I wish there was a simpler alternative to protobuf that gives more control to end users and doesn't try to be smart
Build brief
See what to build and who will buy it
- 2 product ideas with the smallest useful version and pricing
- 3 places to find your first customers
- 2 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks