Introducing IceRPC 0.2 with full Protobuf support

[bernardnormier]

We are thrilled to announce the release of IceRPC 0.2.0.

This release adds full Protobuf support to IceRPC: you can now easily implement a Protobuf service with IceRPC, and call this service over IceRPC. See our documentation and examples to learn more.

This release also introduces some improvements to the IceRPC + Slice integration:

• We refactored how you implement services

IceRPC 0.1	IceRPC 0.2
// Service implementation derives from // base class IceRpc.Slice.Service internal class Chatbot : Service, IGreeterService { ... }	// Service implementation is partial // and marked with [SliceService] attribute [SliceService] internal partial class Chatbot : IGreeterService { ... }

This attribute-based approach is more flexible: your service implementation can now derive from the class of your choice.

• Proxies are no longer Slice data types - however, can you easily create equivalent data types with custom

IceRPC 0.1	IceRPC 0.2
// Defines both an interface and // a proxy type. interface Widget { ... } interface WidgetFactory { // Returns a proxy to a service that // implements the Widget interface createWidget() -> Widget }	// Defines only an interface. // `Widget` is not usable as a // field type or parameter type. interface Widget { ... } interface WidgetFactory { // Returns a WidgetProxy (see below) createWidget() -> WidgetProxy } // Represents a proxy to a service that // implements interface Widget. This // proxy is encoded as a service address. [cs::type("Example.WidgetProxy")] custom WidgetProxy

This change simplifies the Slice type system and completes the decoupling between Slice and IceRPC.

Please give this new version a try, and let us know what you think!

-- The ZeroC team