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Date: Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:31:44 +0200
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Subject: Re: understand thrift
From: Peter Schuller <peter.schuller@infidyne.com>
To: user@cassandra.apache.org
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> Just want some clarifications on thrift.
> 1. thrift creates a layer between Cassandra and the client, specific to
> whatever language you want.

Well, thrift allows cassandra to expose an RPC interface in a language
neutral fashion.

> 2. thrift generates an interface to Cassandra's service endpoints
> *3. when Cassandra's endpoints have been modified, thrift needs to be
> re-generated (along with potentially the language specific driver)
> Is this correct or am I missing something?

For changes in the service interface, the thrift compiler must be
re-run for any client to take advantage of that functionality.

In terms of backwards compatibility, changes can be backwards
compatible if they are carefully constructed to be such. It is thus up
to the service that exposes its interface via thrift, whether changes
in the interface are intended to be backwards compatible.

There may be thrift specific compatibility issues, but I believe those
are mostly at the source code level. I'm not sure if thrift has ever
broken binary compatibility?

-- 
/ Peter Schuller