Use closures instead of genfun?

Your compile logic currently uses generate-function to build some code, e.g. https://github.com/mafintosh/protocol-buffers/blob/012e982de02db16693ac777816677cbf6f38697e/compile.js#L105.

This is neat (it looks like in some cases you are dynamically including/excluding entire sections of code!) — however it does mean that it won’t work on the current Tessel runtime, where JavaScript code is actually compiled “offline” before it is pushed, and later eval/Function is not currently possible.

I know this is just one platform, and it’s not really your fault that its “JavaScript” implementation is incomplete, but this was kind of a bummer. Protocol buffers seem like a great fit there. (FWIW, you may also run into this restriction in-browser with default Content Security Policy settings in affect.)

Anyway, just thought I’d mention this for future consideration. I know performance is a big focus here, but seems like simply returning closures instead of “generated functions” would bring compatibility (and readability) benefits, and [speculatively] might not be appreciably slower on modern optimizing JS engines.

[mafintosh]

We could bundle a command line tool that would allows you to compile the protobuf schema into a javascript file. I.e.

// schema.proto
message Test {
  required string hello = 1
}

Then run

protocol-buffers schema.proto > messages.js

Then in your js code you’ll be able to

var messages = require('./messages')
var buf = messages.Test.encode({hello:'world'})
console.log(buf)

[vweevers]

A fun thought (just the fact that it’s possible): one could also generate the Javascript code in a browserified Service Worker. Something like:

const protobuf = require('protocol-buffers')
const schema = require('fs').readFileSync(__dirname+'/schema.proto', 'utf8')

self.addEventListener('fetch', function (event) {
  const req = event.request

  if (/\/schema\.js$/.test(req.url)) {
    const js = protobuf.generate(schema)

    event.respondWith(new Response(js, {
      status: 200,
      statusText: 'OK',
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/javascript',
        'Content-Length': js.length.toString()
      }
    }))
  }
})

With some more code to cache the result and maybe wrap it. Then to use it somewhere in your app, you’d include it like <script src="schema.js"> or with some async module loader. Apart from the missing protobuf.generate() function, this works in Chrome today.