[GitHub] [arrow-site] bkietz commented on a change in pull request #50: ARROW-8023: [Website] Add blog post about the C data interface

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bkietz commented on a change in pull request #50: ARROW-8023: [Website] Add blog post about the C data interface
URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow-site/pull/50#discussion_r402507444
 
 

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 File path: _posts/2020-04-xx-introducing-arrow-c-data-interface.md
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 @@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Introducing the Apache Arrow C data interface"
+description: "This post introduces the Arrow C data interface, a simple C-based
+interoperability standard to simplify interactions between independent users
+and implementors of the Arrow in-memory format."
+date: "2020-04-02 00:00:00 +0100"
+author: apitrou
+categories: [application]
+---
+<!--
+{% comment %}
+Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+The ASF licenses this file to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+(the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+limitations under the License.
+{% endcomment %}
+-->
+
+Apache Arrow is a cross-language, platform-independent in-memory format
+allowing zero-copy data sharing and transfer between heterogenous runtimes
+and applications.
+
+The easiest way to benefit from the Arrow format has always been to depend
+on one of the concrete implementations developed by the Apache Arrow community.
+There are 11 such implementations, each for a different language and ecosystem
+(Java, C++, Python, Rust, R, Javascript, C#, Go...).
+
+However, packaging and ABI issues in C++ can deter from depending on the
+Arrow C++ library.  We have therefore worked on an alternative, which
+involves exchanging data at the C level by conforming to a simple data
+definition.  The C ABI is a platform-wide standard that is unlikely to
+change (and practically never changes), because it ensures portability of
+libraries and executable binaries.
+
+The best way to learn about the C Data Interface is to read the
+[spec](https://arrow.apache.org/docs/format/CDataInterface.html).
+However, we will quickly go over its strong points.
+
+## Two simple struct definitions
+
+To interact with the C Data Interface from you C or C++ level, the only
+thing you have to include in your code is two struct type declarations
+(and a couple of ``#define`` for constant values).  Those declarations
+only depend on standard C types.  You can simply paste them in a header
+file.
+
+## Zero-copy data sharing
+
+The C Data Interface passes Arrow buffers through memory pointers.  So,
+by construction, it allows you to share or pass data from one runtime to
 
 Review comment:
   ```suggestion
   by construction, it allows you to share data from one runtime to
   ```

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