Before I get into this week’s column, first, a question: Are you familiar with the open-source, Google-developed framework known as gRPC? I was speaking with someone recently who said they’re exploring the remote procedure call to speed up middleware interactions. Sadly, I know nothing about it, but if gRPC is something that you, too, are looking at, I’d love to hear your thoughts: [email protected]

Also, today marks the start of our first (virtual) conference of the year