title: Byte serialization
body: <p>I recently had a discussion with a colleague about serialization of byte data over a network.
  He used the <code>BinaryFormatter</code> class to "unparse" the byte data I was sending to him. This did not work and he obviously had <em>exceptional</em>... exceptions. <code>Binaryformatter</code> could not "unparse" the data correctly since my data was simply a byte array.</p>
  
  <p>His motivation for <code>BinaryFormatter</code> was platform independence. I am not persuaded of such a stance. When we both used <code>BinaryReader</code> or <code>BinaryWriter</code>, things worked well in code land.</p>
  
  <p>What is the use therefore of <code>BinaryFormatter</code> and should I look at using it in each scenario wherever I need to send bytes over the wire?</p>