[teiid-dev] Connector supplied metadata

[John Doyle]

I think our public discussion on this feature started after this was communicated as a requirement for 6.2, which was one day after the R&D call.  Please do correct me if I'm wrong about that.  I don't think that's the way this community should work.  I won't speak for TDM and PM, but from my discussions with them, I didn't get the impression that they pushed this feature.

Do we really want to follow a process where we make a feature a requirement of a release, before it's discussed publicly, and then say that you can only have 'technical discussions' of the feature?  That's not open.  This feature is not the problem, it's an instance of the problem.  Technical discussion of the feature is beside the point.

On a related point, you cannot tell me that I'm confusing one goal with another.  Anybody who wants to participate in this community can define goals however they want.  Those goals can be rejected or accepted, but this has to happen in the open.  I've been advocating for bridging the metadata language goal and this feature, you can't tell me that's invalid.  If the consensus is that that's a bad idea, then that's the consensus, and I'm fine with that, but you can't tell me it's invalid or that I'm confused.  

~jd

----- "Ramesh Reddy" <rareddy at redhat.com> wrote:

> On Thu, 2009-07-09 at 19:03 -0400, John Doyle wrote:
> > I've looked at the work checked in on the 7th, and given that it's
> the
> > first check-in I think it's very good.  I have some technical
> comments
> > that I will put in the JIRAs, but what's there is good.
> > 
> Let's hear them on this list before we make JIRA, as they may be
> already
> being worked on?
> 
> > My main point is about process.  We discussed the connector
> metadata
> > feature before we were open source, and I thought the consensus was
> > going the other way, it's hard to say from my remote perspective. 
> The
> > next time I see it it's on the short list for 6.2.  
> We have had discussions about the feature in public, that is when we
> had
> our differences. May be not discussions as to how to implement it,
> but
> as I said before there was not much to re-invent. This feature took
> precedence from the R&D call we had, where overwhelmingly most of the
> questions were why we did not have similar feature. Also, 6.2 list is
> based on the product discussions with TDM and PM.
>
> > But I read your responses below and I still don't know where this
> > thing is going.  Is the plan to expose the "metadata objects" more
> > broadly as THE way to specify metadata?
> > We need to hash out what a feature will be in the forums before we
> > commit to it, so that everybody gets to see and pitch in if they
> > choose, and some consensus can be built.  Everybody can see the
> > implications so that people can react/plan.  
> I think you confusing with our another broader goal in defining the
> metadata language. That is being discussed on thread [VDB metadata
> consumed by Teiid]. That is discussion how we define a metadata
> language
> in DDL or XMI or Groovy etc. Please do contribute on that thread with
> any suggestions. The intent is that language is the persistent form,
> and
> the metadata objects being defined now are the runtime graph that
> represent the language.
> 
> > It's not clear to me that the Designer team is signed up for any
> work
> > associated with this.  
> We have not solicited them for any tooling around this feature. That
> is
> the main point of this feature too. Teiid to work (minimally only
> federation not any abstraction) with out any tooling around it.
> 
> > I don't know if I'm going to try and adapt the SF connector to this
> > new API because I don't know what's going to be there.  
> Again, let us know what you need to make this happen. Documentation
> is
> also coming up before release of 6.2 on Connector development.
> 
> > It looks like Extensions are not in the offing for this release? 
> Is
> > that right, or wrong?
> I think they are part of next set of commits, Steve?
> 
> > I think we're on the same page here technologically, I just don't
> have
> > anyway to tell because the vision has not been elaborated.
> The metadata vision is make it available to the Teiid in tool
> independent way and make it easy for the developer to define and use.
> 1)
> Connector Metadata 2) Metadata Language 3) ??
> 
> I know, we need to get better at this, it's not late. So let's hear
> technical discussions around the feature rather than complaining.
> 
> Ramesh..