[jboss-as7-dev] Behaviour of EJB timer with intervall has changed AS5 -> AS7

[Wolf-Dieter Fink]

I've tested the behaviour of AS7 timer during bug fixing.
And now I need to discuss and clarify how the behaviour in AS7 should be.


There is a big difference in case of overlapping timers between EAP5.1 
(and earlier, I don't check AS6) and AS7.

ISSUE:
If a timer is longer active as the interval, the time-out was delayed as 
long as the running timer is active.
With AS7 the time-out method will be executed and run concurrent!

I see migration issues because the application may rely on the non 
concurrent behaviour.

QUESTIONS:
The fix looks simple.
But I want to clarify whether there is a counter-argument

1) recurring (interval) timer
A interval timer should not be called until it is still running
=> there is no WARN/INFO should we add it?

2) calendar timer
Should a calendar timer delayed also if the period between time-outs is 
to short?
=> I would prefer a WARN message if the timer is dropped

What about catch up on startup if the timer is persistent.
ATM all events are fired in parallel if there are more.
(This will be a nice ERROR party in the log file in case of 
SingletonBeans with default WRITE lock.)
=> Drop it with a warning
=> block it until the first is finished


regards
Wolf