Talk:Protocol Buffers

Apache Thrift and RPC protocol stack.
"Protocol Buffers" refers to a specification, it is not a plural entity. The article keeps referring to it in the plural ("are" instead of "is" etc.) To avoid this error and make the text less awkward, it would help to use the very common nickname "Protobuf", introduce that in the first sentence, then use that throughout the article. That would give sentences like "Protobuf is very similar to Apache Thrift" instead of the awkward "Protocol Buffers are very similar to Apache Thrift". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.196.196.7 (talk) 18:05, 29 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I have seen the main page and have got no idea why Google itself refers to it in the plural, maybe a singular Protocol Buffer is itself a spec? I don't know. Chininazu12 (talk) 03:49, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

In the following paragraph, to which protocol does the word "it" refers to? Protocol Buffers or Apache Thrift?

Protocol Buffers are very similar to the Apache Thrift protocol (used by Facebook for example), except it does not include a concrete RPC protocol stack to use for defined services. — Preceding unsigned comment added by פרה (talk • contribs) 06:43, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

This question is answerable by of course examining the published implementation, but more relevantly also in the response by Kenton Varda which is already given in the references section. Hence I updated the main article to clarify. 79.97.229.113 (talk) 22:37, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Clarifying
Doesn't it mean that the protocol is simple transpier from one source code to another?  DAVRONOV A.A. ✉ ⚑ 22:59, 16 June 2018 (UTC)


 * It would be correct to say that protoc is an example of a transpiler. Protocol Buffers itself is a data format like JSON or XML. I think the article's wording is fine. Chaparral2J (talk) 17:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC)