Life & fun · December 20, 2014
MGen – A toolkit for cross-language object serialization
MGen – A toolkit for cross-language object serialization launched on December 20, 2014 with 24 votes and more than 75% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 11 years on.
In plain words
MGen is a toolkit for serializing objects across different programming languages. It works similarly to Protocol Buffers but supports language-native inheritance, polymorphism, heterogeneous containers, maps, and lists. The compiler generates classes that accept generic visitors, with built-in visitors for JSON and binary serialization. Users can create custom visitors for additional functionality. The plug-in based compiler separates code generation from IDL parsing, allowing customization of either component.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
MGen is a toolkit for cross language object serialization. It consists of: Think Google’s Protocol Buffers - but with support for language native inheritance and polymorphism, heterogenous containers, maps, lists, arrays and custom serialization formats. Generated classes accept generic visitors, while the MGen libraries provide visitor classes that serialize to JSON and binary formats. You can also roll your own visitors to implement whatever functionality you like. The MGen compiler is plug-in based, with code generation decoupled from IDL parsing - so if you’re unhappy with either you can add your own IDL parser and/or code generator plug-in. As a cherry on the cake MGen lets you modify…from culvertsoft.github.io
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