Funny thing, given how much use protobufs has been put thru, I think one could make the argument its more battle tested than ASN.1 ...
On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 3:24 PM, Constantine Peresypkin <[email protected]> wrote: > Protobuf is an attempt to make ASN.1 more developer friendly (not a bad > attempt). > It's simpler, has much less features, easier to implement and has a compact > encoding. > But on other hand it's non-standard, "reinvented wheel" they could just do > a "better than PER" encoding for ASN.1, and AFAIK has no support for the > new and shiny Google encodings, like "group varint". > All in all in current situation it seems a better choice than ASN.1, not > even arguing about something even more vague and non-standard as Thrift. > > On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 12:38 AM, Ryan Rawson <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Thanks for that Ted. >> >> Correct - internal wire format doesnt mean 'drill only supports >> protobuf encoded data'. >> >> Part of the reason to favor protobuf is that a lot of people in the >> broader 'big data' community are building a lot of experience with it. >> Hadoop and HBase both are moving to/moved to protobuf on the wire. >> Being able to leverage this expertise is valuable. >> >> There is a JIRA in Hadoop-land where someone had done a deep dive >> 'bake off' between thrift, protobuf and avro. The ultimate choice was >> protobuf for a number of reasons. If people want to re-do the >> analysis, I'd like to see it in the context of THAT analysis (eg: why >> the assumptions there are not the same for Drill)... if anything it'd >> give a concrete form to what can be a mire. >> >> For what it's worth, I've had many discussion along these angles with >> a variety of people including committers on Thrift, and the consensus >> is both are good choices. >> >> -ryan >> >> On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 2:31 PM, Ted Dunning <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > I think that it is important to ask a few questions leading up a decision >> > here. >> > >> > The first is a (rhetorical) show of hands about how many people believe >> > that there are no serious performance or expressivity killers when >> > comparing alternative serialization frameworks. As far as I know, >> > performance differences are not massive (and protobufs is one of the >> > leaders in any case) and the expressivity differences are essentially >> nil. >> > If somebody feels that there is a serious show-stopper with any option, >> > they should speak. >> > >> > The second is to ask the sense of the community whether they judge >> progress >> > or perfection in this decision is most important to the project. My >> guess >> > is that almost everybody would prefer to see progress as long as the >> > technical choice is not subject to some horrid missing bit. >> > >> > The final question is whether it is reasonable to go along with protobufs >> > given that several very experienced engineers prefer it and would like to >> > produce code based on it. If the first two answers are answered to the >> > effect of protobufs is about as good as we will find and that progress >> > trumps small differences, then it seems that moving to follow this >> > preference of Jason and Ryan for protobufs might be a reasonable thing to >> > do. >> > >> > The question of an internal wire format, btw, does not constrain the >> > project relative to external access. I think it is important to support >> > JDBC and ODBC and whatever is in common use for querying. For external >> > access the question is quite different. Whereas for the internal format >> > consensus around a single choice has large benefits, the external format >> > choice is nearly the opposite. For an external format, limiting >> ourselves >> > to a single choice seems like a bad idea and increasing the audience >> seems >> > like a better choice. >> > >> > On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 12:44 PM, Ryan Rawson <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > >> >> Hi folks, >> >> >> >> I just commented on this first JIRA. Here is my text: >> >> >> >> This issue has been hashed over a lot in the Hadoop projects. There >> >> was work done to compare thrift vs avro vs protobuf. The conclusion >> >> was protobuf was the decision to use. >> >> >> >> Prior to this move, there had been a lot of noise about pluggable RPC >> >> transports, and whatnot. It held up adoption of a backwards compatible >> >> serialization framework for a long time. The problem ended up being >> >> the analysis-paralysis, rather than the specific implementation >> >> problem. In other words, the problem was a LACK of implementation than >> >> actual REAL problems. >> >> >> >> Based on this experience, I'd strongly suggest adopting protobuf and >> >> moving on. Forget about pluggable RPC implementations, the complexity >> >> doesnt deliver benefits. The benefits of protobuf is that its the RPC >> >> format for Hadoop and HBase, which allows Drill to draw on the broad >> >> experience of those communities who need to implement high performance >> >> backwards compatible RPC serialization. >> >> >> >> ==== >> >> >> >> Expanding a bit, I've looked in to this issue a lot, and there is very >> >> few significant concrete reasons to choose protobuf vs thrift. Tiny >> >> percent faster of this, and that, etc. I'd strongly suggest protobuf >> >> for the expanded community. There is no particular Apache imperative >> >> that Apache projects re-use libraries. Use what makes sense for your >> >> project. >> >> >> >> As regards to Avro, it's a fine serialization format for long term >> >> data retention, but the complexities that exist to enable that make it >> >> non-ideal for an RPC. I know of no one who uses AvroRPC in any form. >> >> >> >> -ryan >> >> >> >> On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 12:30 PM, Tomer Shiran <[email protected]> >> >> wrote: >> >> > We plan to propose the architecture and interfaces in the next couple >> >> > weeks, which will make it easy to divide the project into clear >> building >> >> > blocks. At that point it will be easier to start contributing >> different >> >> > data sources, data formats, operators, query languages, etc. >> >> > >> >> > The contributions are done in the usual Apache way. It's best to open >> a >> >> > JIRA and then post a patch so that others can review and then a >> committer >> >> > can check it in. >> >> > >> >> > On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 12:23 PM, Chandan Madhesia < >> >> [email protected] >> >> >> wrote: >> >> > >> >> >> Hi >> >> >> >> >> >> Hi >> >> >> >> >> >> What is the process to become a contributor to drill ? >> >> >> >> >> >> Regards >> >> >> chandan >> >> >> >> >> >> On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 9:51 PM, Ted Dunning <[email protected]> >> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> > Suffice it to say that if *you* think it is important enough to >> >> implement >> >> >> > and maintain, then the group shouldn't say naye. The consensus >> stuff >> >> >> > should only block things that break something else. Additive >> features >> >> >> that >> >> >> > are highly maintainable (or which come with commitments) shouldn't >> >> >> > generally be blocked. >> >> >> > >> >> >> > On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 9:14 AM, Michael Hausenblas < >> >> >> > [email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> > >> >> >> > > Good. Feel free to put me down for that, if the group as a whole >> >> thinks >> >> >> > > that (supporting Thrift) makes sense. >> >> >> > > >> >> >> > >> >> >> >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > -- >> >> > Tomer Shiran >> >> > Director of Product Management | MapR Technologies | 650-804-8657 >> >> >>
