Let's give REST a rest: exploring the state of gRPC in Ruby

gRPC has been around for a while and, even though it’s neither a replacement of REST nor a better option for building APIs, it is an alternative that can be useful in certain cases where we can benefit from lightweight messages, built-in code generation and high performance. In this talk I’ll share the concepts, pros and cons, and use cases of gRPC with examples in Ruby.

Presented at EuRuKo 2024

Transcript

1. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Fernando Perales  @FerPeralesM Let's Give REST a rest: Exploring the state of gRPC in Ruby
2. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM <me>
3. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM • Development Team Lead @ thoughtbot • From Guadalajara, Mexico • RubyMX organizer and host • Co-organizer @ RailsBridge Mexican chapter Illustration by instagram.com/@layered_space
4. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM An odyssey to get here GDL 🚎 BJX BJX 🛫 IAH 
 
 IAH 🛫 FRA FRA 🛫 SJJ
5. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM </me>
6. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Story time
7. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Joined a RoR consultancy as a trainee in February 2013
8. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Left that company in October 2016 to join a startup
9. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Why?
10. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM The stack
11. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM The stack • Go • Cassandra • Kubernetes • Angular 2 • gRPC + protobuf
12. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM The stack • Go • Cassandra • Kubernetes • Angular 2 • gRPC + protobuf
13. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM 5 months later…
14. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
15. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Joined another RoR consultancy in June 2017
16. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM I’ve been doing RoR full time since then!
17. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM #blessed 🙏
18. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Tried to bring gRPC + protobuf into my Ruby world
19. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM No luck
20. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Why is gRPC more popular in some languages than in others?
21. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
22. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
23. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
24. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
25. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
26. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
27. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM A travel to the past
28. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM 1993 - 1994
29. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM 🌍
30. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM W3C and IETF
31. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Roy Fielding
32. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM REST
33. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software
34. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/REST_information_model.png
35. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/REST_information_model.png
36. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Another travel to the past (future)
37. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM 2016
38. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Microservices era ✨
39. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM August 2016
40. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
41. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
42. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM RPC
43. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM gRPC characteristics
44. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Definition of services and contracts
45. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Protocol Buffers (protobuf)
46. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
47. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Four types of method calls
48. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
49. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
50. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
51. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
52. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM <demo>
53. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM  FerPerales/grpc_demo
54. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Definition of contracts
55. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
56. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Creating our server
57. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Code generation
58. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM For Ruby: grpc_tools_ruby_protoc -I ../protos --ruby_out=./ server/lib —grpc_out=./server/lib ../protos/hello.proto
59. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
60. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
61. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Implement our service
62. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
63. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Creating our server
64. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
65. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Creating our client
66. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Code generation
67. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM For Ruby: grpc_tools_ruby_protoc -I ../protos --ruby_out=./ client/lib —grpc_out=./client/lib ../protos/hello.proto
68. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
69. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
70. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Implement our client
71. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
72. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Running the server
73. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM ruby server/app/server.rb
74. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Client calls say_hello in server
75. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM ruby client/app/client.rb “Euruko 2024!”
76. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
77. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM </demo>
78. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Advantages of using gRPC + profobufs
79. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM /api/v{n+1}
80. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM How protobuf helps with versioning?
81. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
82. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM
83. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Performance
84. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Disadvantages of using gRPC + protobuf
85. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Implementation
86. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Debugging
87. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM When should we use gRPC?
88. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM It depends™
89. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM PoC
90. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Multi language systems
91. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Microservices
92. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Internal communication systems
93. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Low-bandwidth networks
94. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM As one of your innovation tokens
95. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM boringtechnology.club
96. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Why is gRPC more popular in some language than in others?
97. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM 🤷
98. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM …
99. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Some guesses
100. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Strong ties with micro services
101. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM REST APIs are enough most of the time
102. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Speed is not everything
103. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM That’s why most of us don’t go to work by plane*
104. #EuRuKo2024  @FerPeralesM Thank you! me@ferperales.net linkedin.com/in/ferperales 🤖 Upcoming thoughtbot events 🤖 In-person office hours - October 10th & 11th - London thoughtbot open summit - October 25th - online