What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introducing Apache Thrift, gives you basic information about the environment where services are needed. You will learn about the history of Apache Thrift and its position in the market. This chapter provides some solid understanding of the context in which Apache Thrift exists.

Chapter 2, Installing and Running Apache Thrift, provides you with a quick tutorial that will allow you to have Apache Thrift up and running on your machine in no time. Instructions for Linux (Debian and CentOS), Windows, and Mac OS X are included.

Chapter 3, Running Your First Apache Thrift Service and Client, gives you the ability to see Apache Thrift in action. Simple instructions will get you through the process of setting up a server and client that run in two different programming languages (PHP and Python) and communicate with each other.

Chapter 4, Understanding How Apache Thrift Works, provides you with real knowledge of the framework's internals. You will learn about its components, network stacks, data types, interface description language (IDL), and the programming languages that are supported. You will also find out about its limitations and how to deal with them. This chapter is essential to understand the concept of "under the hood", and how to design your own Apache Thrift-supported services.

Chapter 5, Generating and Running Code in Different Languages, provides you with a toolbox of essential information about different popular programming languages and how you can use them with Apache Thrift. You may read it from the beginning to the end or just focus on those languages that interest you. The same example is used for every language, so you can easily compare the server's and client's implementation for each of them.

Chapter 6, Handling Errors in Apache Thrift, gives you information on how to deal with undesirable situations that may occur when you run your service or client. Handling errors is an important part of any programming project, and is especially essential when dealing with cross-platform applications where errors occur frequently due to the nature of the distributed architecture.

Chapter 7, An Example Client-Server Application, gathers knowledge from the whole book into one example client-server application. You will build the code step by step. The example touches every aspect of Apache Thrift and is a bit more complicated than what you have done until now. Three different languages will be used (PHP, Python, and Ruby).

Chapter 8, Advanced Usage of Apache Thrift, inspires you to further expand your Apache Thrift skills. You will learn how big companies use this framework, how to run your applications in production, and how to address security, performance, and scalability issues. You will be also be given access to other interesting Apache Thrift-related projects.