RCPlike

RCPlike is a term used to describe a family of software patterns and libraries that implement remote procedure call-like communication between distributed components. RCPlike systems expose remote interfaces as callables on network endpoints, while abstracting transport details and providing consistent interface contracts. The concept is used to group technologies that implement method-oriented invocations rather than resource-centric REST calls, while often supporting asynchronous operation, streaming, and strong typing through an interface definition language.

Core architecture typically includes: an interface contract that defines available methods and data types; a client library that offers local-style stubs; server-side handlers that implement the contracts; a pluggable transport layer (HTTP, HTTP/2, gRPC, message queues); serialization formats (JSON, Protobuf, MsgPack); service discovery and routing; and cross-cutting concerns such as authentication, authorization, tracing, and retries.

Key features include synchronous and asynchronous invocation, directional one-way messages, streaming support, structured error reporting, timeouts, retries, and circuit-breaking. Design decisions include transport choice, serialization formats, and whether to emphasize strict versioning of interfaces or tolerant forward compatibility. RCPlike patterns are common in microservice and cloud-native architectures where services are invoked through well-defined interfaces rather than direct function calls.

RCPlike is not a single standard but a broad category that includes technologies such as gRPC, Apache Thrift, and RSocket, as well as custom RPC-like layers built atop message queues or HTTP. See also RPC, gRPC, Thrift, RSocket, REST.