[dna-dev] JBoss DNA 0.4 planning

[Randall Hauch]

On Nov 17, 2008, at 2:17 PM, Stefano Maestri wrote:
> Randall Hauch wrote on 04/11/08 19:37:
>> Now that 0.3 is almost out the door, I'd like to start discussing the
>> goals for the next release.
>>
>>    * I'd love to see the JCR implementation take more shape.  Right
>>      now it's read-only, so getting that much farther along would be
>>      outstanding.  Anybody interested?  I think we could easily put
>>      several people to work here.  The graph API is pretty good, and
>>      should make implementing JCR relatively straightforward.  Any
>>      interest, Michael Trezzi and Alexandre and Serge?
>>
> I'm definitively interested contributing here also because a starting
> project for my daytime job will need DNA will support JCR writing. BTW
> which kind of writing would we support in this release? Just on local
> filesystem I guess.
> Any plan for different kind of writing like relational DB or  
> distributed
> writing (hadoop for example)?

Actually, this "writing" that we should support in 0.4 was referring  
to the parts of the JCR implementation that change the graph.  Right  
now, the JCR implementation only has implementations for the "read"  
methods.  Architecturally, the JCR implementation uses our new Graph  
API introduced in 0.3.  The idea is that the JCR implementation works  
with everything as graph content managed by a connector.  Even the  
NodeTypeManager would be implemented on top of the Graph API.  Events  
may also be addressed in 0.4, but versioning, search and query would  
likely be handled in 0.5.  (Actually, if that's true, then 0.5 might  
actually be 1.0).

Now, you asked about plans for storing graph content in a relational  
DB or other systems (e.g., Hadoop).  Just to be clear, the Graph API  
already supports reading and writing, and we'll be adding events in  
0.4.  The only 0.3 connector that supports persisting content is the  
JBoss Cache connector (relying upon JBoss Cache's ability to persist  
the cache content in a relational database or file system).  But I'm  
already working on a new connector that stores graphs in a relational  
database using JPA (using Hibernate for the implementation).   
Hopefully that will be available soon.

>> We can either tackle several things at once and move them all
>> incrementally, or we can do more in just a few areas.
> My personal thoughts are that we need a strong effort for a complete  
> JCR
> implementation.

Yes, I agree.  The question is if multiple people are working on the  
JCR implementation, do they collaborate on one feature at a time, or  
do they each work on their own part of the JCR implementation?  I  
don't have a preference, but would like those wanting to work on the  
JCR implementation to decide.

> I'll post very soon what my daytime project is and how it's related on
> DNA, since I think it could be of some interest for the whole  
> community
> being one of the first enterprise project that would use DNA quiet
> extensively.

Wonderful!  Can't wait to see it.

Best regards,

Randall