[infinispan-dev] Comments on tutorials etc.

[Pete Muir]

As part of getting up to speed with infinispan, I've been running through the docs and tutorials. Some thoughts

1) http://www.jboss.org/infinispan/downloads.html

One thing that is always annoying is having to configure the jboss repo. I suggest adding this snippet to the above page for people to copy, which can be pasted into either the pom, or into settings.xml, and is self contained.

   <profiles>
      <profile>
         <id>jboss-public-repository</id>
         <activation>
            <property>
               <name>jboss-public-repository</name>
               <value>!false</value>
            </property>
         </activation>
         <repositories>
            <repository>
               <id>jboss-public-repository-group</id>
               <name>JBoss Public Maven Repository Group</name>
               <url>http://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/groups/public</url>
               <releases>
                  <enabled>true</enabled>
                  <updatePolicy>never</updatePolicy>
               </releases>
               <snapshots>
                  <enabled>true</enabled>
                  <updatePolicy>never</updatePolicy>
               </snapshots>
            </repository>
         </repositories>
         <pluginRepositories>
            <pluginRepository>
               <id>jboss-public-repository-group</id>
               <name>JBoss Public Maven Repository Group</name>
               <url>http://repository.jboss.org/nexus/content/groups/public</url>
               <releases>
                  <enabled>true</enabled>
                  <updatePolicy>never</updatePolicy>
               </releases>
               <snapshots>
                  <enabled>false</enabled>
                  <updatePolicy>never</updatePolicy>
               </snapshots>
            </pluginRepository>
         </pluginRepositories>
      </profile>

   </profiles>

2) http://www.jboss.org/infinispan/downloads.html

Suggest adding two code snippet for the dependency too:

a)
    <properties>
      <infinispan.version>X.Y.Z.Q</infinispan.version>
   </properties>

b)
   <dependencies>
      <dependency>
         <groupId>org.infinispan</groupId>
         <artifactId>infinispan-core</artifactId>
         <version>${infinispan.version}</version>
      </dependency>
   </dependencies>

3) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/5minutetutorialonInfinispan

Cache cache = manager.getCache();

I get a warning with this line in Eclipse, as Cache should be a parameterized type. Doesn't break stuff, but doesn't look good that we advise people to write incorrect code.

4) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/5minutetutorialonInfinispan

To make this totally fool proof, might want to indicate how people can run this, e.g. in a main method on a class. This also really highlights how "lightweight" this stuff is (no need for a big server etc.)

5) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/5minutetutorialonInfinispan

For the expiration, might want to adjust the values a bit. 60s is a long time to wait, and also setting the expiration to 60s, and the thread sleep to 60s is risking the assertion failing (it did for me). I would suggest something more like 5s expiration, 10s sleep.

6) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/InstallingInfinispantutorialenvironment

This information is really useful, and I would suggest splitting out the groovy bit and then adding a link from the 5 min tutoiral

7) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/InstallingInfinispantutorialenvironment

Some of the instructions on this page could be clearer if they all built as code blocks. For example, following the groovy ones, I struggled reading the first paragraph, it would have been helpful to split this up and provide code snippets to use like:

$> cp $INFINISPAN_HOME/infinispan-core.jar ~/.groovy/lib/

etc.

8) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/InstallingInfinispantutorialenvironment

The location of infinispan-core jars and dependencies has changed from $INFNISPAN_HOME/modules/core to $INIFINISPAN_HOME, the tutorial needs updating

9) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/Infinispaninteractivetutorial

When doing the below line, I get an error:

And now, create a cache manager indicating the file with the cache definitions.
groovy:000> manager = new DefaultCacheManager("sample-configurations.xml"
)
===> org.infinispan.manager.DefaultCacheManager at 19cc1b@Address:
null

oovy:000> manager = new DefaultCacheManager("/Users/pmuir/Downloads/sample-configurations.xml")
ERROR java.io.IOException:
null
        at org.infinispan.config.InfinispanConfiguration.newInfinispanConfiguration (InfinispanConfiguration.java:264)
        at org.infinispan.config.InfinispanConfiguration.newInfinispanConfiguration (InfinispanConfiguration.java:282)
        at org.infinispan.config.InfinispanConfiguration.newInfinispanConfiguration (InfinispanConfiguration.java:136)
        at org.infinispan.manager.DefaultCacheManager.<init> (DefaultCacheManager.java:243)
        at org.infinispan.manager.DefaultCacheManager.<init> (DefaultCacheManager.java:229)
        at groovysh_evaluate.run (groovysh_evaluate:4)

and I don't know how to get past it, so I stopped this tutorial here.

10) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/InfinispanInteractiveTutorialwithScala

Could do with some comments explaining what each line is doing, some of the code isn't self describing

e.g.

what does me entering val defaultCache = manager.getCache[String, String]() actually achieve?

11) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/InfinispanInteractiveTutorialwithScala

It might be neat to split up input and output e.g. into different snippets - make it easier to read

12) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/InfinispanInteractiveTutorialwithScala

For "Cache with Transaction Management" I was not seeing TX semantics being obeyed, I saw the size increment as a added key-value pairs

13) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/SettingupanInfinispanCluster

When I do gc.setTransportClass(JGroupsTransport.class.getName()); and import JGroupsTransport I get two options, one from Infinispan and one from JGroups, tutorial should saw which to import.

14) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/SettingupanInfinispanCluster

The CacheManager is deprecated, I guess these needs updating to 4.2 API?

15) http://community.jboss.org/wiki/SettingupanInfinispanCluster

I would suggest adding some instructions about how to do a simple test to see the cluster working, atm the tutorial seems to end in middle of something. There are hints in the comment, but nothing concrete