Popular serialization formats

There are many popular serialization formats and protocols used in the industry. Let’s cover some of the most popular formats:

• XML
• YAML
• Apache Thrift
• Apache Avro
• Protocol Buffers

This section will provide a high-level overview of each one, as well as some key differences between these protocols.

XML

XML is one of the earliest serialization formats for web service development. It was created in 1998 and is still widely used in the industry, especially in enterprise applications.

XML represents data as a tree of nodes called elements. An element example would be <example>Some value</example>. If we serialized our metadata structure mentioned above, the result would be the following:

<Metadata><ID>123</ID><Title>The Movie 2</Title><Description>Sequel of the legendary The Movie</Description><Director>Foo Bars</Director></Metadata>

You...