Sorry for stupid question, but I am new to protobuf and there are 2 concepts mentioned in the context of it. Protobuf compiler and protobuf runtime. What is the difference between these and what do these exactly do?
My understanding is that the public protobuf compiler is protoc, but there are probably other compilers out there too. It is a script that takes the .proto file and generates, say a .java class from it. Is that correct?
But what is Protobuf Runtime? If Compiler already generates the .java file, what do we need runtime for? Is it similiar to Java Runtime in the sense of being a runtime library of its own with its own classes (that generated .Java classes might reference)?