Udo, having worked on Protobuf with you, I share the emotional attachment. I
also agree that it's a valuable feature to have and that ideally someone would
pick it up. I don't think it's feature complete enough at this point to be
viable. Unlike with Redis, I haven't seen anyone in the community contribute to
it in a long time. If you or someone else were to volunteer to do all the work
you propose we do on Protobuf, I'd strongly support keeping it.
I think each of the other feature areas you propose as potential removal
candidates deserve their own dedicated discussion. I understand some of them
are harder to remove from a technical perspective or neither experimental nor
deprecated and would thus require a Geode 2.0.
________________________________
From: Udo Kohlmeyer <u...@vmware.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2021 14:54
To: dev@geode.apache.org <dev@geode.apache.org>
Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] removal of experimental Protobuf client/server interface
-1
Given that I was on the team that started this initiative, I will naturally
have an inclination to say 'No'.
I don't know if I would go as far as removing this project/initiative out of
Geode.
I understand that the way that was used to hook into Geode was less the
perfect, and I fully support removing those and possibly replacing them with
viable alternatives, if that makes the core Geode project better. What I don't
support is the removal of the code completely on the basis that it isn't used
by anyone (we have no proof either direction).
I think that the addition of this adapter is beneficial to the Geode. Given
that lack of documentation relating to the Geode wire protocol, the barrier of
entry for anyone else to connect to Geode is HUGE. The Protobuf initiative was
the effort to lower the bar of entry for other
languages to be able to talk to Geode. But by removing it, we make Geode less
accessible. I think the lack of focus on this effort can also attribute to the
lack of use. As @Dave pointed out, there is little to no documentation impact
for the adapter. Which means, we (Geode) have failed at marketing this feature.
I propose that the Protobuf adapter NOT to be removed, but rather reworked so
that it fits more in line with our other extensions like Redis and Memcache.
Yes, we would have to maintain the code, but it is not like we haven't been
doing this with the Memcache or Redis extension for a MUCH longer period than
what we have for Protobuf. If we keep Protobuf, we need promote it, so we
should document this adapter. Alternatively, if we remove Protobuf, we put
effort into documented our wire protocol, so that Geode wire protocol is not a
closed box and a HUGE barrier for anyone wanting to connect to Geode.
If we vote to permanently remove the Protobuf from Geode, I want to suggest
that we put to vote the removal of many other projects in Geode on the basis of
lack of adoption:
* Geode-Rebalancer
* Geode-Memcache
* Geode-Connector
* Geode-Redis
* Geode Offheap
These are projects that we maintain without any (known) users actively using
these features.
--Udo
On 3/24/21, 2:16 AM, "Bruce Schuchardt" <bru...@vmware.com> wrote:
Hi folks,
We’ve had an experimental client/server interface in Geode that no-one to
my knowledge is using. We’re testing it with every build and are having to
make changes to it to keep it up to date with the rest of the project. The
last change of substance to the geode-protobuf sub-project, for instance, was
in 2018 but that’s been followed by many incidental commits.
GEM-8997<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fissues.apache.org%2Fjira%2Fbrowse%2FGEODE-8997&data=04%7C01%7Camurmann%40vmware.com%7C474b871ac5b0494f0e6808d8ee4648aa%7Cb39138ca3cee4b4aa4d6cd83d9dd62f0%7C0%7C0%7C637521332927079996%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=estfHHI7xvwVbLMGP%2Bm0lchbZp%2BYMrLapVn3nW55Fgo%3D&reserved=0>
was opened to have the sub-projects for this interface removed. I’ve prepared
a pull
request<https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fapache%2Fgeode%2Fpull%2F6168&data=04%7C01%7Camurmann%40vmware.com%7C474b871ac5b0494f0e6808d8ee4648aa%7Cb39138ca3cee4b4aa4d6cd83d9dd62f0%7C0%7C0%7C637521332927079996%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=EwOmxVhAEcxNhFTQ1wU2zp70HmHWaPBJmOvZq4hNrdU%3D&reserved=0>
to remove it and would like to get consensus to move forward with that effort.
