gRPC in grasshopper (help needed)

Hi all,

I am a beginner in grassshopper scripting, and I wanted to ask what would be the easiest way to build a gRPC client for Grasshopper?

gRPC is a high performance, open-source universal RPC framework. As payload it uses protocol buffers which is optimised for transport and storage, and is Google's lingua franca for data. It would be great to use it for extensibility in grasshopper.

As gRPC supports both C# and Python I didn't think it would take many lines of code, but I have so far failed to put it together. Could anyone please describe to me best practice is in such case, and/or want to collaborate on the project? I can picture an open repo on gitHub or similar.

My main qustions are:

• Should I use C# or Python?
• Can I use Visual Studio 2017? All the VS 2015 installers have failed on my computer.
• Do I have to use Visual Studio, or can I get away with the built-in editor? What are the main limitations using one over the other?
• Can I build Rhino5 GH components in VS2017? I have built a Rhino 6 GH component from the McNeel template, but it did not work when opened in Rhino 5 GH (currently only R6 templates are available for VS2017).
• Can Rhino 5's old ironPython deal with the newer gRPC package?
• What's the best way to do rapid iterations and version controll building GH comps?

TL;DR: I want to build a very simple gRPC.io client GH component, and appreciate all help I can get.

Many thanks, Martin