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GRPC and Thrift can't express ADTs (enums with data) easily, but OpenAPI can. That's worth a lot in my book. Another advantage of OpenAPI is that you can write

GRPC and Thrift can't express ADTs (enums with data) easily, but OpenAPI can. That's worth a lot in my book. Another advantage of OpenAPI is that you can write your specifications using Rust types (as we do at Oxide with Dropshot: https://docs.rs/dropshot https://docs.rs/dropshot) edit: Apparently protobuf 3 does have oneof: https://protobuf.dev/programming-guides/proto3/#oneof https://protobuf.dev/programming-guides/proto3/#oneof. They look like they solve the problem but I can't vouch for it, and they appear to have some edge cases ("only the last member seen is used in the parsed message"). Thrift doesn't appear to, still. And I do think being able to write the spec using Rust types is really nice -- you still get an OpenAPI document as an artifact, and (for external users) you get wide client compatibility.

throwawaymaths 2y ago
If you're building maintainable servers you should write the doc first and the codegen from there. Otherwise you're gonna be in a world of hurt when some junior changes your datatype or if you need to version and maintained both versions simultaneously from the same or similar endpoints.
- sunshowers 2y ago
  You're right that this is a very difficult problem, but writing the document first doesn't give you much over generating it from types. We actually have a plan for supporting multiple versions, and conversions between the corresponding types, using Dropshot as the place where that's coordinated.
  - throwawaymaths 2y ago
    > writing the document first doesn't give you much over generating it from types. There's a required top-level parameter called version. As you are writing the document, it's in your face.
    - sunshowers 2y ago
      With Dropshot, the version is passed in as a function argument to the OpenAPI generator.
      - throwawaymaths 2y ago
        You will find out the problems with your approach.

throwawaymaths 2y ago

If you're building maintainable servers you should write the doc first and the codegen from there. Otherwise you're gonna be in a world of hurt when some junior changes your datatype or if you need to version and maintained both versions simultaneously from the same or similar endpoints.

sunshowers 2y ago
You're right that this is a very difficult problem, but writing the document first doesn't give you much over generating it from types. We actually have a plan for supporting multiple versions, and conversions between the corresponding types, using Dropshot as the place where that's coordinated.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
  > writing the document first doesn't give you much over generating it from types. There's a required top-level parameter called version. As you are writing the document, it's in your face.
  - sunshowers 2y ago
    With Dropshot, the version is passed in as a function argument to the OpenAPI generator.
    - throwawaymaths 2y ago
      You will find out the problems with your approach.