LittleHorse Likes Sun

An airhacks.fm conversation with Colt McNealy (@coltmcnealy) about:
first computing experience with Sun workstations and network
computing, background in hockey and other sports, using system76
Linux laptops for development, starting programming in high school
with Java and later learning C, fortran, assembly, C++ and python,
working at a real estate company with kubernetes and Kafka, the
genesis of LittleHorse from experiencing challenges with
distributed microservices and workflow management, LittleHorse as
an open source workflow orchestration engine using Kafka as a
commit log rather than a message queue, building a custom
distributed database optimized for workflow orchestration, the
recent move to fully open source licensing, comparison with AWS
Step Functions but with more capabilities and open source benefits,
using RocksDB and Kafka Streams for the underlying implementation,
performance metrics of 12-40ms latency between tasks and hundreds
of tasks per second, the multi-tenant architecture allowing for
serverless offerings, integration with Kafka for event-driven
architectures, the distinction between orchestration and
choreography in distributed systems, using Java 21 with benefits
from virtual threads and generational garbage collection, plans for
Java 25 adoption, the naming story behind "Little Horse" and its
competition with MuleSoft, the Sun Microsystems legacy and
innovation culture, recent adoption of Quarkus for some components,
the "Know Your Customer" flow as the Hello World example for Little
Horse, the importance of observability and durability in workflow
management, plans for serverless offerings and multi-tenant
architecture, the balance between open source core and commercial
offerings

Colt McNealy on twitter: @coltmcnealy