Nexus serialization

[ctreffs]

Description

This PR aims to add serialization for the whole Nexus.

There are several challenges with this, but especially the static types on deserialization make it hard to get it right.

Open ToDos:

• Encode to YAML, JSON, binary data
• Decode from YAML, JSON, binary data

Detailed Design

For now arbitrary components are serialized into a binary format, but this should not be the final solution since this will produce a platform dependent and unstable serialization format.

Documentation

t.b.d.

Testing

t.b.d.

Performance

t.b.d.

Source Impact

t.b.d.

Checklist

• I've read the Contribution Guidelines
• I've followed the coding style of the rest of the project.
• I've added tests covering all new code paths my change adds to the project (to the extent possible).
• I've added benchmarks covering new functionality (if appropriate).
• I've verified that my change does not break any existing tests or introduce unexpected benchmark regressions.
• I've updated the documentation (if appropriate).

[codecov]

Codecov Report

Attention: Patch coverage is 69.56522% with 63 lines in your changes missing coverage. Please review.

Project coverage is 93.72%. Comparing base (9708eba) to head (cae5c71).

Additional details and impacted files

@@            Coverage Diff             @@
##           master      #38      +/-   ##
==========================================
- Coverage   97.21%   93.72%   -3.49%     
==========================================
  Files          24       27       +3     
  Lines        1435     1642     +207     
==========================================
+ Hits         1395     1539     +144     
- Misses         40      103      +63