wtf is easy-rpc?

easy-rpc is a hands-on learning project that walks Java developers through building their own RPC (remote procedure call) framework from scratch. An RPC framework is what lets different parts of an application talk to each other across a network as if they were running on the same machine. The author built this project specifically so other developers could learn by doing rather than just reading someone else's source code. The project simulates a simplified version of Dubbo, a widely-used RPC framework in the Java ecosystem. On the server side, you mark a service with a custom annotation to expose it over the network. The service gets registered in ZooKeeper, which acts as a directory that keeps track of which services are available and where they live. On the client side, you use another annotation to automatically get a reference to that remote service, and then you can call its methods as though it were a local object. Under the hood, the project uses Netty for network communication, Java reflection, and dynamic proxy techniques to make the remote calls feel seamless. It also packages everything as a Spring Boot starter, so it plugs into a standard Spring Boot application with just a dependency and a couple of config lines. The primary audience is Java developers who want to deepen their understanding of how distributed service frameworks actually work. Rather than using a production-grade tool as a black box, you build a mini version yourself and learn the moving parts: service registration and discovery, network communication, custom annotations, Spring Boot auto-configuration, and more. The author pairs the code with a written tutorial series, making it approachable for someone who wants guided, step-by-step learning. The project is upfront about being a low-performance, educational tool, not something you would use in production. The tradeoff is intentional: by keeping the implementation simple, the code stays readable and approachable for learners, which matters more here than speed or reliability. The README doesn't go into detail about advanced features like load balancing or circuit breaking, though it hints that those concepts are part of the broader RPC landscape the series aims to cover over time.