[Python-Dev] PEP for RFE 46738 (first draft)

[Oren Tirosh]

Please don't invent new serialization formats. I think we have enough
of those already.

The RFE suggests that "the protocol is specified in the documentation,
precisely enough to write interoperating implementations in other
languages". If interoperability with other languages is really the
issue, use an existing format like JSON.

If you want an efficient binary format you can use a subset of the
pickle protocol supporting only basic types. I tried this once. I
ripped out all the fancy parts from pickle.py and left only binary
pickling (protocol version 2) of basic types. It took less than hour
and I was left with something only marginally more complex than your
new proposed protocol.

  Oren