experimenttested
When a simple data format is too expensive
On a memory-constrained device, a compact binary index used less working memory than rebuilding a large text document.
JSON was convenient for a small device’s saved index until saving required building the whole document and then copying it into another large string. The format was readable; the memory spike was not.
The experiment was to replace that path with a compact binary index and keep a compatibility import for the old data. Both software targets built successfully, but the honest boundary matters: compilation proves the code fits together, not that the physical device will survive repeated saves. The next result belongs to the hardware test.