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Facebook's Cross-Language Network Library

Posted by kdawson on from the talk-is-lightweight dept.

koreth writes "Facebook has released Thrift, a toolkit for making remote method calls. It generates interoperable network code in C++, Java, PHP, Python, and Ruby. Its protocol is much more lightweight (and probably much higher-performance) than SOAP or CORBA. Facebook uses it internally for high-traffic services like search. The license is extremely permissive."

5 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Facebook is releasing this? by Khuffie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You do realize that Facebook is a fantastic example of a clean, functional UI that only uses fancy 'web 2.0' features ala AJAX where it's actually useful?

    MySpace, on the other hand, is a piece of shit.

  2. Re:potential privacy concern? by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    RTFA

    They're not giving away any API to their data.

    What they've released is nothing more than a platform-independant RPC protocol.

    And a weird one at that. Instead of relying on common, generic data-format such as XML, they seem to be relying on a custom compiler for their own definition language. I'm sure the underlying data-format is usable without the compiler, but then there could be better methods for writing/reading it.

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  3. "Probably" much higher performance? by nekokoneko · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Post benchmarks to prove a statement or don't state it at all. Don't use weasel words to try to convey a point of view without solid evidence. BTW, it seems this statement was made by either the submitter or the editor, since I couldn't find anything mentioning it on TFA.

  4. OT: A good C++ RPC library without code generating by garo5 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    According to the tutorial this api relies on code generation, which I personally don't like.

    Does anybody know any good C++ RPC library which uses templates and which does not need code generating with any external tool nor executable?

    C++ templates allows metaprogramming, so such tools should be able to be developped, but I don't know any. Does anybody know any?

    - Garo

  5. Re:Facebook is releasing this? by Ngarrang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ignoring the users of Facebook, the site is about the use of technology. They made their job easy on themselves and created a framework to make their own jobs that much easier. And...in the same spirit of other companies, are releasing that software to the public. I applaud this. May the best framework win!

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    Bearded Dragon