Object type standardization

Whether you are using custom binary serialization, JSON, or JSON-RPC you need to think about how your user is going to handle the object at the other side of the transaction. Many of the serialization packages Protocol Buffers such as protocol buffers and Thrift that use stubs to generate client code will happily deal with serialization of simple types such as Dates into native types that enable your consumer to easily use and manipulate these objects. However, if you are using JSON or JSON-RPC there is no concept of a Date as a native type therefore it can be useful to fall back to ISO standards which the user of the client can easily deserialize. The Microsoft API design guidelines provide some good advice on how to handle Dates and Durations.