Google Protocol Buffers

Google Protocol Buffers, or Protobuf, is a method for serializing structured data, allowing it to be easily stored and transmitted. Think of it as a way to pack information into a compact format that can be sent over the internet or saved in files. It's like organizing files in boxes: Protobuf helps developers define data structures and then efficiently encode and decode that data, ensuring it can be shared between different systems and programming languages. This makes Protobuf especially useful for applications that need to communicate quickly and reliably, such as in cloud services or remote APIs.