That's not Google. Buf.build is, hilariously enough, a completely separate company that tries to make sense of Google's protobuf, and it's doing a decent job from what I can see.
They reluctantly acknowledged that as a mistake by adding an actual "optional" modifier for field presence. proto3's previously so-called optional were really all present with a zero default value; proto2 could have supported that for required fields at the code level if they had wanted. In the end, all they've changed is how they frame the feature.
That's not Google. Buf.build is, hilariously enough, a completely separate company that tries to make sense of Google's protobuf, and it's doing a decent job from what I can see.
so you're saying protobuf has no purpose?
i mean...
Protobuf should at least get credit for enforcing fields be optional.
They reluctantly acknowledged that as a mistake by adding an actual "optional" modifier for field presence. proto3's previously so-called optional were really all present with a zero default value; proto2 could have supported that for required fields at the code level if they had wanted. In the end, all they've changed is how they frame the feature.