Better Protobuf / gRPC Support for Python

This project aims to provide an improved experience when using Protobuf / gRPC in a modern Python environment by making use of modern language features and generating readable, understandable code. It will not support legacy features or environments. The following are supported:

• Protobuf 3 & gRPC code generation
  • Both binary & JSON serialization is built-in
• Python 3.7+
  • Enums
  • Dataclasses
  • async/await
  • Relative imports
  • Mypy type checking

This project is heavily inspired by, and borrows functionality from:

• https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf/tree/master/python
• https://github.com/eigenein/protobuf/
• https://github.com/vmagamedov/grpclib

TODO

• Fixed length fields
  • Packed fixed-length
• Zig-zag signed fields (sint32, sint64)
• Don't encode zero values for nested types
• Enums
• Repeated message fields
• Maps
  • Maps of message fields
• Support passthrough of unknown fields
• Refs to nested types
• Imports in proto files
• Well-known Google types
• JSON that isn't completely naive.
• Async service stubs
• Python package
• Cleanup!