API World 2023 + AI DevWorld 2023

Ivan Pesenti, Sorint Lab, Software Developer

gRPC is an open-source remote procedure call (RPC) framework used in client-server communication. The project is part of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF). gRPC supports lots of programming languages natively or with the usage of some third-party plugins. His key aspects are low latency, high scalability, reliability, etc.
Protocol Buffers are a neutral mechanism for serializing structured data. They serve to exchange data between parties in a fast and efficient way. They're similar to JSON messages but faster and smaller. Together with gRPC, they form a proof-of-bullets combination.
The third actor in this workshop is Go. We'll rely on it as it fits very well in this scenario. His popularity is blazing growing in the latest years. It's fresh and free from old OOP paradigms.
Thanks to these three, we'll build an API to manage TODOs. The application will expose four handlers, one for each kind of communication forecasted by gRPC.
Let's take a closer look at the workshop agenda:

- Theoretical introduction to gRPC
- gRPC lifecycle (Unary RCP, Server streaming RPC, Client streaming RCP, Bidirectional streaming RCP)
- Overview of Protocol Buffers
- How Protocol Buffers Work and .proto files
- Protocol Buffers definition syntax
- Check if our environment has everything we need to follow along with the workshop
- Write an API for managing the TODOs
- Definition of the .proto file
- Generation through the protoc plugin of the gRPC scaffolded code
- Set the gRPC server up
- Set the gRPC client up
- Run the program

By following this workshop, you'll get familiar with the basics of gRPC, Protocol Buffers, and the Go programming language. You'll get the fundamentals to start growing your expertise in these topics. Keep in mind that if you start well, you're at 50% of the journey!