> How does Erlang serialize messages? It doesn't because it messages itself, so the message format is native to itself.
I don't get the difference you're drawing... the in-memory and on-the-wire representation of terms are different, so there's still serialization involved (term_to_binary/1). The format is documented and there are libraries for other languages.
They're different, but not that different as the functional message-oriented nature of Erlang means your entire state is typically in transferable terms, and the serialization format directly maps terms back and forth.
Technically Erlang could go much further, but much like multicore support took forever, I guess due to lack of funding, it doesn't. Things like:
1. When transferring between two compatible nodes, or processes on the same node, 'virtually' serialize/deserialize skipping both operations and transferring pointer ownership to the other process instead.
2. When transferring between compatible nodes on different servers, use internal formats closer to mem representation rather than fully serializing to standard ETF/BERT
I don't get the difference you're drawing... the in-memory and on-the-wire representation of terms are different, so there's still serialization involved (term_to_binary/1). The format is documented and there are libraries for other languages.