perf: Change `List<int>` to `Uint8List`

[feinstein]

I see that when reading/writing files, mason uses List<int>. I don't know if it's possible, but theoretically Uint8List offers better performance.

I honestly don't know if any performance upgrades would be actually meaningful, but it would be a nice try if someone has some spare time to test this.

[felangel]

Yeah that's a good point. I opened #1569 with the changes but need still need to do some profiling. This would also technically be a breaking change.

[feinstein]

Would it? In theory the contracts are still the same and AFAIK both types are compatible and interchangeable, so it's an internal implementation detail maybe? I get that the binary outcome could change, but in theory it shouldn't (from what I remember from the dart docs).

[felangel]

Would it? In theory the contracts are still the same and AFAIK both types are compatible and interchangeable, so it's an internal implementation detail maybe? I get that the binary outcome could change, but in theory it shouldn't (from what I remember from the dart docs).

Practically speaking it shouldn't break anyone even though it's technically a breaking change (e.g. if anyone was calling any of the APIs directly with a List<int> it would break).

[feinstein]

Oh I see! I didn't thought this method was exposed, it makes sense then.