Inspired by the approach described at the bottom of https://richardstartin.github.io/posts/dont-use-protobuf-for-telemetry
Given that we do a lot of varint writing as well, this should provide a small performance boost for larger/complex packets whilst not regressing hard on smaller packets.
This includes a test to ensure that the behavior is as expected and fixes the initialization loop so that the correct results will be given. Much thanks to @octylFractal for acting as my duck while trying to figure this out.
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