Move to Kotlinx Serialization for better support KMM?

[iruizmar]

Parcelable is an Android only thing and, because of that, it requires the CommonParcelize thing. Is there any disadvantage on moving to Kotinx Serialization instead?

[ZacSweers]

Parcelable allows us to hook screens (and by extension, our whole back stack) directly into the Android bundle system.

In K2 parcelize supports custom annotations, so it's trivial to support and you can continue to write screens in commonMain.

The only real annoyance I've ever seen put forward for kotlinx-serialization is the source set bit (which is solved in K2 above), but never anything actually gained from using serialization or acknowledgement of what we lose from dropping parcelable. So - what would we gain that is worth that cost or at least offers equivalent integration?

[iruizmar]

what would we gain that is worth that cost or at least offers equivalent integration?

It was all about the source set bit, actually.
Can you elaborate (or send me a link to read about) regarding the "In K2 parcelize supports custom annotations, so it's trivial to support and you can continue to write screens in commonMain."?

Parcelable allows us to hook screens

That's also achievable if using kotlinx-serialization by actually serializing/deserializing the value, but I get that it doesn't make sense if Parcelize is easy to add to common code.

[ZacSweers]

Yeah take a peek at the K2 PR, there is a new compiler option to specify a custom annotation. That plus a one-time expect/actual Parcelable super type is enough.

That's also achievable if using kotlinx-serialization by actually serializing/deserializing the value

Achievable yes but not without needing to write serialization ceremony at every integration point. The nice thing with parcelable is you can just put it in a bundle, no need to locate a serializer first and ask users to decide when/how to encode/decode before it gets there.

That said, there's also nothing stopping you from marking your screens as serializable if you want that.

[iruizmar]

Ok, thanks mate! :)