I have posted Boost.IDL to github complete with documentation here: http://bytemaster.github.com/boost_idl/index.html https://github.com/bytemaster/boost_idl The library is header only. It is included as part of the Boost.Defrag "incubating" projects. The documentation includes several examples of how it is used to provide a simple 'command line interface' to a struct as well as a fully 'generic' RPC example that will expose any interface over the network using Boost.Serialization. Full RPC implementation 245 SLOC. The RPC example is very 'bare bones' because I think that a Boost.RPC library should be a separate project. I welcome any feedback. The code is still very 'new' and has not been tested on any platforms other than OS X, but it should all be very portable as I write Mac/Linux/Windows portable software every day. Server: struct Echo { std::string echo(const std::string &s) { return s; } }; BOOST_IDL_INTERFACE( Echo, BOOST_IDL_BASE, (echo) ) int main() { boost::idl::rpc_server<Echo> server( Echo() ); server.listen( 50001 ); return 0; } Client: struct Echo { std::string echo(const std::string &s); // implementation not needed }; BOOST_IDL_INTERFACE( Echo, BOOST_IDL_BASE, (echo) ) int main() { boost::idl::rpc_client<Echo> client; client.connect_to( "localhost", 50001 ); std::string s = client.echo( "what's up" ); return 0; } Type Erasure Applied to rpc_client: // erase the details of the rpc_client, by storing // it in a generic Echo interface. boost::idl::any<Echo> any_echo = client; Command Line Interface: template<typename InterfaceType,typename InterfaceDelegate> void start_cli( boost::idl::any<InterfaceType,InterfaceDelegate>& a ) { cli m_cli; m_cli.start_visit(a); std::string line; std::string cmd; std::string args; while( true ) { std::cerr << "Enter Method: "; std::getline( std::cin, line ); cmd = line.substr( 0, line.find('(') ); args = line.substr( cmd.size(), line.size() ); std::cerr << m_cli[cmd](args) << std::endl; } }