Consider using package for json serialization

[kenzieschmoll]

Throughout DevTools, we manually implement serialization methods like .parse constructors or toJson methods / json getters.

We should consider using a package like https://pub.dev/packages/json_serializable to simplify and unify how we serialize dart objects. When choosing a package, we'll need to make sure everything will still work well in g3.

[jacob314]

To work with g3 we'd probably want to use built_value.

[kenzieschmoll]

@jakemac53 can you provide a status update on Dart macros and Json serialization? If we can use a macro for this (or will be able to at some point in the near future), we can probably close this issue as not planned.

[jakemac53]

I would use json serializable or similar for now

[srawlins]

Closing this as not planned. Since this was filed, DevTools standardized on a lightweight in-house approach instead: the Serializable mixin and the deserialize / deserializeNullable helpers in package:devtools_shared/src/utils/serialization.dart, which are now used consistently across the codebase.

Dart macros, the other option raised in the comments above, have since been cancelled, and we have not hit enough pain with the current approach to justify adding a code generation step to the DevTools build.

If there is more work to do here, please let us know by filing a new issue with up to date information. Thanks!