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It was a carton scanning app, so basically a massive array of objects (carton data) which were needed so the app could function and route cartons and validate deliveries entirely offline. Due to some unfortunate limitations from our clients and some edge cases, we couldn't filter down the data on the server ahead of time. So we ended up having to keep that massive amount of data on the device, and at the end of the day 95% of it would be unused, but we wouldn't know which 95% until the device was already offline.

It was a system where the goalposts moved many times during the development. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't use JSON, but after having the goals change a few times and then having the original server-side components get co opted to work on other projects, it was hard to justify the time that would be spent switching to a different, more appropriate wire format.




I kept reading that as cartoons and I was just so confused for a second...




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