Regarding Stacks, Runtimes, and Remote Descriptors
by Rob Stryker
Regarding Stacks, Runtimes, and Remote Descriptors
Hi All:
This email is to try to begin discussion on some recent duplication of
code and responsibilities, which should probably be fixed before things
get too comfortable. I'm speaking specifically about the role of
discovering runtimes to download, where that's done, how that's done,
and which responsibility belongs to who. Forgive me if the email is
long, as I am trying to be thorough.
Currently, there are three places from which runtimes to download may be
discovered.
1) base/runtimes has an extension point named downloadRuntimes, which is
used by AS Tools and Seam Tools (and perhaps others).
2) a remote descriptor file which acts as a second arm of 1) and is
basically an xml form of 1) used to dynamically add new runtimes as they
become available
3) The new Stacks methodology, currently stored in
jbosstools-central/maven/plugins/org.jboss.tools.maven.project.examples
We should begin unifying these three locations into one, but the goal is
to do it correctly. So, I would first like to list the benefits of each.
a) downloadable runtimes provided through the extension point cannot be
removed without a maintenance or major release of some type, and for
this reason are semi-permanent
b) downloadable runtimes available via the remote descriptor file may be
added OR removed at will. This provides flexibility and post-release
updates are easy.
c) The new stacks section has a more robust model capable of providing
more information than the downloadable runtimes does. However, the
plugin requires several libraries and is currently placed in the
jboss-central module, where others may not make use of it.
d) the Stacks yaml file does not provide a place to access the file size
for the download, however it does provide a 'labels' section, which
seems extendable to add whatever properties you may want to add.
At first glance, it seems that Stacks is the superior framework. It is
extensible, it can have unlimited labels (aka properties) if desired,
and it already provides more information which is usable to others who
may want it. To make use of stacks inside Runtimes, however, we'd either
need to:
a) Expand the API in runtimes to allow other plugins (like in
central) to provide downloadable runtimes, or,
b) Push 'stacks' out of central and down into runtimes, as its own
plugin upon which runtimes.core and runtime.ui can depend.
The main negative of pushing stacks into base/runtimes, in my opinion,
is that there are a significant number of libraries required. It's not
too much, by far, but it is about 7 jars totalling about 1 megabyte.
Whether these jars belong in base/runtimes is debatable, and currently
we do not have a "3rd-party dependencies" section in base where we
organize common dependencies and versions together so that each plugin
doesn't need to bundle their own 3rd party libraries. I admit, this is a
debate for another time, but, I just wanted to point out that pushing
the stacks logic down into runtimes would be another example of this issue.
Even still, I would argue that we should push stacks into its own small
plugin below runtimes, deprecate the "downloadRuntimes" extension point,
and the online downloadRuntime.xml (wherever the file is, I forget).
However, once we do that, there are many more questions. The first is,
who's job is it to provide the yaml file from which stacks are generated?
Currently there is only one yaml file, and it is referenced directly via
a github url. Aside from how (IMO) this is fairly crazy in itself, it
causes another problem. The stacks client jar *can* cache the yaml file
and only update if the timestamp has changed, however, when checking the
timestamp on a github file, there isn't one...
This would seem to imply we should take control of the yaml file
ourselves and put it NOT in github but rather in a release-specific
online-accessible folder, ex: jbt4.1/stacks.yaml, jbt5.0/stacks.yaml, etc.
The problem with this is that we are then taking control away from the
jdf team, and once we take the file away, it is our job to keep it
updated and in synch. This may cause errors if we are not very careful.
Assuming we do this, though, the next question is, do we add seam and
esb runtimes to this yaml file, which currently only provides
application servers? Remember, the purpose of moving stacks down would
be to deprecate the downloadRuntime extension point, therefore any
replacement would need to do everything downloadRuntime does, which
includes providing seam and esb runtimes for download.
Let's assume (for now) that we simply add lines to the yaml to allow it
to provide seam and esb runtimes. We may come back to this point later,
but for now, assume we do that.
Then which plugin will provide the url to our copied yaml? Who's
responsibility is it to point to this yaml file? Let's look at our options:
1) The runtimes plugin references the yaml
2) The central plugin references the yaml
Both of these fail after thinking about it. How?
1) If the runtimes plugin references the yaml, then the download
runtimes dialog will list things (like seam) which may not be present in
the installation. Imagine an installation with only base and server
plugins installed, and so no seam or esb. A user clicking 'download
runtimes' will see esb and seam downloads, but the plugins which are
prepared to handle those runtimes after the download are not present.
2) If central is in charge of providing this yaml, perhaps through a new
extension point to the base/runtimes/stacks plugin we add there, then an
installation including only plugins from base / server will have a BLANK
download list. Users who install only ASTools will not be able to
download JBoss Application Servers.
So both of these fail in their own way. The only solution as I can see,
the only way it would work, would be to have multiple such yaml files,
one for astools, one for seam, one for esb, etc. Each of these modules
would provide their own yaml url to base/runtimes/stacks via an
extension point in base/runtimes/stacks, and let stacks fetch each one
and build a unified model.
Problems:
a) multiple urls need to be loaded
b) multiple yaml files need to be kept up to date, instead of just
one. Multiply number of contributing plugins by number of major releases
c) Possibility of duplicates. Once you have multiple yaml files
generating models, it's possible some duplication leaks in. I'm not so
sure about this one, but Fred listed it as a concern.
So, by my analysis, this is the only way I can imagine a unification of
these three models. I'll summarize the changes below, but it does seem
there would be a bit of work to do.
Summary of changes:
1) Deprecate downloadRuntimes extension point
2) Create new plugin in runtimes module called "stacks"
3) Add extension point to 'stacks' plugin called stacksProvider
4) modify runtime.core and runtime.ui to use the model built in 'stacks'
5) Create a web-accessible location for jbt-release-relevent data on a
per-module basis. For example,
http://wherever/jbt/4.1.0/stacks/astools.yaml, etc.
6) Copy the current jdf yaml file to that location for astools.yaml
7) Create a new yaml file which can build stacks for esb, seam, etc
8) Ensure astools, esb, seam, etc, make use of the new stacksProvider
extension point
9) Test the shit out of it
There are other benefits to this approach. Currently there's no really
good mapping of downloadRuntimes id's to an app-server id. This is done
in a hard-coded fashion in astools. This could instead be added to the
labels in the astools.yaml file if desired. It would allow dynamic
addition or removal of any runtimes, though in the yaml syntax. It would
minimize connections and re-downloads of the yaml files, since they'll
actually have a timestamp now (as opposed to in github, where they
don't). And it could help clean up some other areas that could benefit
from a cleanup.
I'd really like feedback on this issue from anyone who knows anything
about the topic, because I know for sure I'm lacking a bit in fully
understanding the entire api. But I'd love at the least for someone to
tell me which of the logic here is obviously bad or if i'm wrong on any
details.
Thanks and look forward to the feedback
- Rob Stryker
I break things, and then put them back together.
11 years, 7 months
Proposed change to the way plugins and features are timestamped - jgit timestamp provider
by Nick Boldt
Coming soon (unless there are violent objections) we're looking at using
the jgit timestamp provider when building plugins/features so that
instead of a build containing all the same timestamped IUs (and
therefore causing more things to change between
builds/milestones/releases, and more things to need to be
installed/replaced) IUs will only get a new timestamp IF the code in
github changes.
More info here: https://issues.jboss.org/browse/JBIDE-13618
If this will cause untold devastation to your test suites or end user
expectations, please comment in the JIRA.
Cheers,
--
Nick Boldt :: JBoss by Red Hat
Productization Lead :: JBoss Tools & Dev Studio
http://nick.divbyzero.com
11 years, 8 months
late warning - code freeze for JBT 4.0.1 is Friday/1st March
by Max Rydahl Andersen
Hi,
We are trying to get a build running from jbt 4.0.x branch on friday to send to QE as an upcoming JBT 4.0.1.
The branches are already made for JBT 4.0.x so its just a matter of making sure your pom/plugin's are properly version bumped.
If you got things that need fixed please get the PR's in for review ASAP.
/max
11 years, 8 months
testing component is dead, long live testing-tools
by Max Rydahl Andersen
I kept seeing issues related to unit and integration testing of specific components put into the component named "testing".
"testing" component description is:
"Currently a catch-all component for ideas/bugs/requests concerning arquillian, shrinkwrap, httpunit, jsfunit etc.Please use labels appropriately for the related project."
Thus it has nothing to do with specific unit/integration testing of our components, but all to do about tools related to testing.
To try and reduce this problem i've gone ahead and renamed "testing" to "testing-tools".
If there are things related to testing of a component or multiple components use their component - i.e. struts, jsf, etc.
Thanks,
/max
11 years, 9 months
Future deprecation of org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.test
by Rob Stryker
Hi All:
I wanted to alert everyone that eventually org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.test
will be deprecated. All new test suite is over at
org.jboss.tools.as.test.core.
This won't happen immediately, but as of now there's only 1 test still
running in the suite, as all others have been slowly moved to the new
suite. I would like it if anyone depending on
org.jboss.ide.eclipse.as.test for test methods could look into the new
test plugin and let me know methods aren't available, or what you can't
find.
I'd be glad to help anyone who needs migration help.
As of now, all classes remain, none have been removed, but the suite
itself is basically in a non-running status. So if you have some time,
give a look to the new suite and tell me what setup methods you depended
on in the past and can't find an equivilent for.
Thanks.
- Rob
11 years, 9 months
About failing jobs from CI
by Mickael Istria
Hi all,
You probably received some mails telling you that a lot of jobs are
failing on Jenkins. Don't worry too much, it's not critical.
The reason is that our cache directory where we put mirrors for
target-platforms and more has been cleared. We don't know why, we don't
know by who; but we know how to repopulate it. That's what we are doing
now: we're rebuilding the necessary target-platforms on Jenkins so they
get back into the cache.
So please be patient and stay cool ;)
--
Mickael Istria
Eclipse developer at JBoss, by Red Hat <http://www.jboss.org/tools>
My blog <http://mickaelistria.wordpress.com> - My Tweets
<http://twitter.com/mickaelistria>
11 years, 9 months
Fwd: Builds broken after JBoss Nexus' cleanup of 90-day old SNAPSHOTs :: ACTION REQUIRED :: update your site/pom.xml files to point to new version!
by Nick Boldt
Policy in JBoss Nexus is to purge old stuff from the snapshots repo when
it gets to be 90 days old.
This has exposed a problem this weekend in that an old artifact,
org.jboss.tools.tycho-plugins:repository-utils:0.0.1-SNAPSHOT, which is
used to generate update sites for projects, no longer exists.
The replacement version, aligned with the current version of Tycho we
use, is this:
org.jboss.tools.tycho-plugins:repository-utils:0.16.0-SNAPSHOT
Therefore projects who use this maven plugin when building their sites
will need to change this:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.jboss.tools.tycho-plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>repository-utils</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
to this:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.jboss.tools.tycho-plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>repository-utils</artifactId>
<version>0.16.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
I'm not sure how many projects are affected by this, but a quick scan of
what's on my disk suggests that at least the following need to be
updated in the 4.0.x, 4.1.0.Alpha1x and master branches:
jbosstools-base/site/pom.xml
jbosstools-central/site/pom.xml
jbosstools-integration-tests/site/pom.xml
jbosstools-javaee/site/pom.xml
jbosstools-server/site/pom.xml
modeshape-tools/site/pom.xml
jbosstools-integration-stack/aggregate-site/pom.xml
--
Nick Boldt :: JBoss by Red Hat
Productization Lead :: JBoss Tools & Dev Studio
http://nick.divbyzero.com
11 years, 9 months
