Outdated protobuf dependency blocks usage with protobuf ≥ 3

[medikos]

Hi, thanks a lot for this great profiling tool — Austin is really impressive.

I ran into an issue integrating it into my project: Austin depends on a very old version of protobuf, and I can’t downgrade protobuf below version 4 in my environment.

Because of this, it’s currently not possible to use Austin alongside modern protobuf-based dependencies.

Is there any chance to update or relax the protobuf dependency to support newer versions?

[P403n1x87]

@medikos thanks for reporting this and I'm glad to hear that you find Austin useful. One thing we could do is have the protobuf dependency as "extras". This means that a standard installation won't have the pprof conversion tool nor any working API for converting to pprof. Would this be acceptable?

[medikos]

Thanks, that would already partially solve my problem 👍

At the same time, I do need the ability to convert profiles to pprof, so this would require the protobuf dependency used for pprof conversion to support newer versions as well.

Are there any known difficulties or blockers when updating the protobuf dependency on your side?

Thanks again!