For very fast communication between different parts of a large system, what kind of data structure helps gRPC be super efficient and work with many programming languages?

The data structure that helps gRPC achieve super-efficient, multi-language communication is Protocol Buffers, commonly known as Protobuf. Protocol Buffers are a language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. For efficiency, Protocol Buffers serialize data into a compact binary format. This binary serialization means the data transmitted over the network is significantly smaller than text-based formats like JSON or XML, which reduces network latency, bandwidth consumption, and overall transmission time. The processes of converting data into this transmittable format, called serialization, and reconstructing it back, known as deserialization, are highly optimized in Protobuf for speed. To support many programming languages, Protocol Buffers utilize an Interface Definition Language (IDL). Developers define their data structures and service methods in a `.proto` file, which is a language-agnostic text file. A Protocol Buffer compiler then takes this `.proto` file and automatically generates strongly typed source code in various programming languages, such as C++, Java, Python, Go, and C#. This generated code includes classes or structs representing the defined data messages and client/server stubs for the service methods. This automatic code generation ensures seamless and type-safe data encoding and decoding across diverse programming languages, simplifying development and ensuring consistent data interpretation throughout the system.