How AWS Generates Polyglot Libraries Based on a Single TypeScript Codebase

Write libraries once in TypeScript and ship them for Python, Java, and Go. Learn the surprising architecture and hidden trade-offs behind the AWS Cloud Development Kit.

#1about 2 minutes

Why polyglot libraries are needed for microservices

Microservice architectures create a challenge by requiring cross-cutting concerns to be implemented across multiple programming languages.

#2about 3 minutes

Simplifying infrastructure as code with AWS CDK

The AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) provides a high-level abstraction over CloudFormation, allowing developers to define infrastructure using familiar programming languages.

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Maintaining feature parity across multiple languages

Supporting multiple languages like Python, Java, and Go in the AWS CDK required a solution to maintain feature parity without rewriting the library for each language.

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Introducing JSii for building polyglot libraries

JSii is a toolchain that generates language-native bindings from a TypeScript codebase, allowing code in languages like Java or Python to interact with JavaScript classes.

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Configuring a TypeScript project for JSii

A TypeScript project is configured for polyglot support by adding specific metadata and target language definitions to the package.json file.

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Navigating language-specific binding challenges

JSii generates bindings for languages like Java, Python, and Go, but developers must handle non-idiomatic code patterns and language-specific constraints.

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Understanding the JSii runtime execution model

JSii operates by running a Node.js child process alongside the host language's runtime, communicating between them by marshalling JSON objects over standard I/O.

#8about 4 minutes