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@ -4,3 +4,42 @@ weight = 3
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[taxonomies]
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tags = []
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+++
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Bamboo is a self-hosted personal media server written in Rust that I've been
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working on for the past two years with my friend
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[Ersei](https://ersei.saggis.com). It aims to replace existing media servers
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like Jellyfin and Plex by decoupling the front-end, API, and content as much as
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possible, allowing for richer client applications and a wider range of content
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and content types.
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Most of what makes Bamboo's architecture different is its ability to generalize
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over types and sources of content while providing common primitives for richer
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metadata.
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For example, Jellyfin provides a few distinct types of media that it can serve:
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Movies, Music, Shows, Books, Photos, and Music Videos. Jellyfin's API is deeply
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tied to its web front-end, so the content you can host on Jellyfin is limited to
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what the Jellyfin web client is capable of displaying. This works okay for
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classic media server content like Movies and TV, but even something slightly
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beyond its expectations, like a YouTube video or Twitch stream, must be made to
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conform to the formats that Jellyfin expects.
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Bamboo solves this problem by defining generic types that are common to all
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media, such as the Title, a UUID, and a list of URLs it can be accessed at, and
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allowing specific types of media to expand upon with additional data and fields.
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This way, clients can be as specific or general as they desire based on their
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required functionality. A media search application may not need to care about
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anything beyond the title, while a Podcast application should only accept media
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that is of the Podcast data type.
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Of course, being written in Rust, Bamboo utilizes Rust's type system to define
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strict API specifications. Invariants, optional or mandatory fields, and data
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types are explicitly encoded using `struct`s, `enum`s, and `serde` for
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serialization and deserialization, removing any ambiguity in the specification.
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This is important for an application as dynamic as Bamboo, as the vast range of
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content that it's capable of serving is intentionally vague and thus incorrect
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assumptions by the server or its clients can make for inconsistent, incorrect,
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or buggy code.
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The public repository for the project can be found at
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[git.nickzana.dev/bamboo/bamboo](https://git.nickzana.dev/bamboo/bamboo).
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