[jboss-dev] Include Web Beans RI in next JBoss 5 release

[Andrew Lee Rubinger]

Comments inline.

Jason T. Greene wrote:
> Carlo de Wolf wrote:
>> That's the reason why we're working on the EJB3 plugin. It works in a 
>> similar manner to the WB RI update. Use ant to patch AS.
>>
>> In future this is going to be handled by the patching functionality of 
>> the Profile Service. It'll be backed up by a Maven repository where 
>> it'll download the version of a bundle/package specified by the 
>> administrator.
> 
> Ugh, I really hope we reconsider integrating maven's buggy codebase into 
> AS. 

No patch installer has to depend upon Maven itself - Carlo was referring 
to our 3rdparty repo used to house binaries brought into AS.

 > Further this kind of thing really only seems useful
> for applying simple support patches, not so much for feature upgrades.

I disagree with you pretty infrequently; this is one of those times.

Feature / module upgrades allow each project a release cycle independent 
of AS.

Envision AS as nothing more than a base runtime which supports arbitrary 
stuff to be deployed into it.  Some upgrade/install mechanism should be 
able to say:

"Install EJB3"

...and then the installer kicks in to:

* Resolve all dependencies (+transitive)
* Ensure compatibility
* Download all dependencies (from Maven2 repo)
* Install all dependencies (libraries and configs)
* Download and install EJB3

Same for update.

> It's perfectly fine for a component library to do their own AS upgrade, 

Kinda, but not really.  Because if the upgrade isn't 
backwards-compatible with all of the projects which depend upon it, or 
if the library demands upgrades to its own dependencies, things get ugly 
quick.

So for a component library to upgrade itself, all of its dependencies 
must be able to do the same.  Hence the recursive process I outlined 
above, and Carlo's explained a bit before (I don't have written record 
of where).

> however that doesn't escape the need for frequent AS releases. 

Agree.

> Also, 
> updating a minor AS rev is simpler for users to manage, and all of the 
> components are actually tested together.

Also agree.

Of course, the second that users start adding/changing their configs, 
they have to merge their stuff with the new updates coming in, and 
that's not always intuitive.  So a user will *think* they have 5.0.1, 
but in actuality have a config that more resembles 5.0.0...

S,
ALR

-- 
Andrew Lee Rubinger
Sr. Software Engineer
JBoss, a division of Red Hat, Inc.
http://exitcondition.alrubinger.com