The binary serialization engine is part of the .NET framework, but the examples given here are specific to C#. As compared to other serialization engines built into the .NET framework, the binary serializer is fast and efficient and usually requires very little extra code to get it to work. However, it is also less tolerant to code changes; that is, if you serialize an object and then make a slight change to the object's definition, it likely will not deserialize correctly.