s11n is here to Save Our Data, man!
Project powered by:
s11n's dream
... Gary has been trying to save a container of value-type structs, each containing a couple POD types. As anyone who has attempted such a thing at the stream level can tell you, even for relatively trivial containers and data types (e.g., even non-trivial strings):
Saving data is relatively easy. Loading data, especially via a generic interface, is mind-numbingly, ass-kickingly difficult!The technical challenges involved in loading even relatively trivial data, especially trying to do so in a unified, generic manner, are downright frigging scary. Some people get their doctorates trying to solve this type of problem. Complete branches of computer science, and hoardes of computer scientists, students, and acolytes alike, have researched these types of problems for practically eons. Indeed, their efforts have provided us a number of critical components to aid us on our way in finding the Holy Grail of serialization in C++... In the 1980's IOStreams, the predecessor of the current STL iostreams architecture, brought us, the C/C++ development community, tremendous steps forward, compared to the days of reading data using classical brute-force techniques, such as those provided by standard C libraries. That model has evolved further and further, and is now an instrumental part of almost any C++ code. However, the practice of directly manipulating data via streams is showing its age. Such an approach is, more often than not, not suitable for use with the common higher-level abstractions developers have come to work with over the past decade (for example, what does it really mean, semantically speaking, to send a UI widget to an output stream?). In the mid-1990's HTML become a world-wide-wonder, and XML, a more general variant from same family of meta-languages HTML evolved from, SGML, leapt into the limelite. Pratically overnight, XML evolved into the generic platform for data exchange and, perhaps even more significantly, data conversion. XML is here to stay, and i'm a tremendous fan of XML, but XML's era has left an even more important legacy than the elegance of XML itself: More abstractly, and more fundamentally, the popularity and "well-understoodedness" of XML has greatly hightened our collective understanding of abstract data structures, e.g. DOMs [Document Object Models], and our understanding of the general needs of data serialization frameworks. These points should be neither overlooked nor underestimated! What time is it now? 2004 already? It looks like we're ready for another 10-year cycle to begin... We're in the 21st century now. In languages like Java(tm) and C# serialization operations are basically built-in (though i do have very deep fundamental differences with Java's whole serialization model - i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy!). Generic classloading, as well, is EASY in those languages. Far, far away from Javaland, the problem domain of loading and saving data has terrified C++ developers for a full generation! s11n aims, rather ambitiously, to put an end to that. The whole general problem of serialization is a very interesting problem to me, on a personal level. It fascinates me, and s11n's design is a direct result of the energy i have put into trying to rid the C++ world of this problem for good. Well, okay, i didn't honestly do it to save the world['s data]:
i want to save my objects!That's my dream... Oh, my - what a coincidence, indeed...
That's s11n's dream, too...s11n is actively exploring viable, in-language C++ routes to find, then take, the C++ community's next major evolutionary step in general-purpose object serialization... all right at home in ISO-standard C++. This project takes the learnings of XML, DOMs, streams, functors, class templates (and specializations), Meyers, Alexandrescu, Strousup, Sutter, Dewhurst, PHP, "Gamma, et al", comp.lang.c++, application frameworks, Java, and... even lowly ol' me (yeah, i'm the poor bastard who's been pursuing this problem for 3+ years ;), and attempts to create a unified, generic framework for saving... well, damned near anything. Actually, saving data is the easy part, so we've gone ahead and thrown in loading support as an added bonus ;). In short, s11n is attempting to apply the learning of an entire generation of software developers and architects, building upon of the streets they carved for us... through the silicon... armed only with their bare text editors and the source code for their C compilers. These guys have my utmost respect. Yeah, okay... even the ones who chose to use (or implement!) vi. ;) Though s11n is quite young, it has a years-long "conceptual history", and it's capabilities far exceed any original plans i had for it. Truth be told, i use it in all of my C++ code. i can finally... finally, FINALLY SAVE MY OBJECTS!!!! i hope you will now join me in screaming, in the loudest possible volume:
It's about damned time!!!