design.md

compact_encoding Rust design ideas

Use features instead of dedicated crates for base encoding, -net, and -struct libraries.

Make the original tests pass + add more tests.

Follow original API

Trait which en-/decodes the primitive types without headers. Trait which en-/decodes the types with headers.

dedicated unit-structs which implement the traits for the individual types

Pros

Cons

• uint type is difficult, since it needs to return a variant of all the possible subtypes (may not be ergonomic to use)
• does not seem very rust-y

Implement pre_encode(), encode(), decode() on supported types?

Pros

• approach is also used by other crates (e.g. bincode)
• feels more rust-y
• no extra types just for serialization

Cons

implement as a serde backend?

Pros

• Can be done on top of previous example

Cons