Usage with plain javascript objects and typescript types

[jonaskello]

We currently use ts-proto to generate types and then just use plain object that follows the structure of those types. We prefer this model to generating runnable code such as classes. Today we implement our own framework for transfering the seriazlied proto data with an abstraction for transport.

When I saw the connect protocol that piqued my interest as it seems similar to what we are already doing, altough in a more standardized form. So I'm starting to research how we may use the connect protocol. The first question I got is if there is some way to use @connectrpc/connect without the requirement to generate classes? We still would like to use plain objects and only generate types instead of runnable code like we do today with ts-proto. I cannot seem to find a full doc on the API for the package other than some examples that all seem to use generated classes but maybe I am not looking in the correct place?

[jonaskello]

I dug a bit into the source and found this:

https://github.com/bufbuild/protobuf-es/blob/8745d7224980eff85344b68d018c956359626e3e/packages/protobuf/src/service-type.ts#L62

Here it seems there is a Message class with some required method that needs to be implemented eg. equals(). To me this class feels a bit like a java/c# construct rather than idomatic javascript/typescript. I think in order to do what we want this would be to be a type/interface here instead of a concrete class. Serialization/Deserialization would still be needed but this could still be achived by decoupling this part from the type as is done in ts-proto.

So my conclusion for now it that this Message class construct is a showstopper for us since I cannot see a workaround to use plain objects/types instead.

[jonaskello]

Aha, so "runtime" here refers just to the serialization and types? Then yes I would agree that making it possible for connect-es to use any serialization and types (eg. from ts-proto) would solve this problem.

[StevenACoffman]

@jonaskello Was there any follow-up on this? Was using connect-es with ts-proto pursued further?

[StevenACoffman]

I opened stephenh/ts-proto#1157 about this

[nicksnyder]

Connect-ES v2 now uses Protobuf-ES v2, which is built around using plain javascript objects. Here are some relevant blog posts

https://buf.build/blog/protobuf-es-v2
https://buf.build/blog/connect-es-v2

I think this addresses the original question so going to close this discussion.