stepchowfun/typical

Typical is a data serialization framework. You define data types in a file called a schema, then Typical generates efficient serialization and deserialization code for various languages. The generated code can be used for marshalling messages between services, storing structured data on disk, etc. The compact binary encoding supports forward and backward compatibility between different versions of your schema to accommodate evolving requirements.

Typical can be compared to Protocol Buffers and Apache Thrift. The main difference is that Typical has a more modern type system based on algebraic data types, emphasizing a safer programming style with non-nullable types and exhaustive pattern matching. You'll feel at home if you have experience with languages that embrace this style, such as Rust and Haskell. Typical proposes a new solution ("asymmetric" fields) to the classic problem of how to safely add or remove fields in record types without breaking compatibility. The concept of asymmetric fields also solves the dual problem of how to preserve compatibility when adding or removing cases in sum types.