conv.

All stories
TechActive · 43h

Developer builds a binary schema language to shrink JSON by 80%

A blog post walking through a hand-built binary serialization format spreads across Hacker News, Reddit, and Mastodon.

newest coverage 23h agosummary written 1d ago6 pieces49 likes & upvotes19 comments RedditHacker NewsMastodonNewswiresLobsters

What to know

  • A blog post explains, step by step, how the author designed a custom binary schema language to replace JSON, using type-tagged headers, varint length encoding, and packed field numbers.
  • The design claims roughly an 80% reduction in payload size compared to JSON by moving type information into a schema rather than storing it per-value.
  • The post spread modestly across Hacker News (two separate submissions), Reddit, and Mastodon, with low but nonzero engagement (top HN score of 5, 2 comments).

hereticpleb (blog author) Author of the blog post and creator of the binary schema language

How it unfolded 4 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts

Peak 2 pieces in one hour at Sep 27, 8 PM; 6 pieces over 44 hours (1 article · 5 posts) Sep 27, 8 AM — 1 piece · 1 post — Reddit 1Sep 27, 9 AM — quietSep 27, 10 AM — quietSep 27, 11 AM — 1 piece · 1 post — Hacker News 1Sep 27, 12 PM — quietSep 27, 1 PM — quietSep 27, 2 PM — quietSep 27, 3 PM — quietSep 27, 4 PM — quietSep 27, 5 PM — quietSep 27, 6 PM — quietSep 27, 7 PM — quietSep 27, 8 PM — 2 pieces · 1 article · 1 post — Hacker News 1, Newswires 1Sep 27, 9 PM — quietSep 27, 10 PM — quietSep 27, 11 PM — 1 piece · 1 post — Mastodon 1Yesterday, 12 AM — quietYesterday, 1 AM — quietYesterday, 2 AM — quietYesterday, 3 AM — quietYesterday, 4 AM — 1 piece · 1 post — Lobsters 1Yesterday, 5 AM — quietYesterday, 6 AM — quietYesterday, 7 AM — quietYesterday, 8 AM — quietYesterday, 9 AM — quietYesterday, 10 AM — quietYesterday, 11 AM — quietYesterday, 12 PM — quietYesterday, 1 PM — quietYesterday, 2 PM — quietYesterday, 3 PM — quietYesterday, 4 PM — quietYesterday, 5 PM — quietYesterday, 6 PM — quietYesterday, 7 PM — quietYesterday, 8 PM — quietYesterday, 9 PM — quietYesterday, 10 PM — quietYesterday, 11 PM — quietToday, 12 AM — quietToday, 1 AM — quietToday, 2 AM — quietToday, 3 AM — quiet 1234
4 PMyesterday8 AM4 PMnow · 4:42 AM ET
  1. 4

    Post is shared on Mastodon

    User hkrn@mstdn.social links to the article and the HN comments thread, extending the post's spread beyond Hacker News and Reddit.

    • hkrn@mstdn.social

      Packing Binary Is Fun L: https:// hereticpleb.vercel.app/blog/pa cking-binary-is-fun-actually C: https:// news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4 9872541 posted on 2026.09.27 at 21:33:51 (c=0, p=3)

      hkrn@mstdn.socialMastodon1d agoview on Mastodon ↗
  2. 3

    Second Hacker News submission reaches the front page

    A re-submission by BurnerBurner under the shortened title 'Packing Binary Is Fun' accumulates 5 points and 2 comments and appears on the HN Frontpage RSS feed.

    “LOOK AT THAT! our 1 byte number tells us both what type it is and what its field number is!”
    — hereticpleb (blog author), blog author · source
  3. 2

    Post is submitted to Hacker News by signa11

    The same article is posted to Hacker News under the title 'Packing Binary Is Fun, Actually', gathering a small amount of traction.

    “If the continuation bit is 1, there’s another header byte. If it’s 0, the header is done.”
    — hereticpleb (blog author), blog author · source
    1. 1 outlet Packing Binary Is Fun

      first by HN Frontpage, 1d ago

  4. 1

    Author publishes blog post on building a binary schema language

    The post walks through designing a binary format with type headers, varint-encoded lengths, and field-number tagging to compress JSON-style data, and it is submitted to r/... by GenericAHHyoutuber.

    “I ended up building an entire binary schema language that can shrink JSON payloads by 80%.”
    — hereticpleb (blog author)