Google released protocol buffers as open source, which, with a proper transport, will give both XML-RPC and Thrift a run for their money.Anyway, it's kind of a pain in the balls to build the Java version. If you import the Java source into Eclipse, it's got all sorts of build errors, all stemming from a missing file:
DescriptorProtos.java.If you've got Maven installed, it will make
DescriptorProtos.java for you (this file is generated via protoc). But Maven is stupid, because it didn't work immediately after apt-get install and I couldn't figure out how to fix it within 30 seconds. I have no patience for this kind of bullshit.So, to build
DescriptorProtos.java without Maven, you make it by hand:protoc --java_out=/home/ted/some_directory \(You already compiled
/path/to/protobufsrc/src/google/protobuf/descriptor.proto
protoc, didn't you?)Drop the output file into Eclipse and protocol buffers will build. There are still a bunch of compilation warnings, but only chumps listen to those.