Dear Pieter,
As a figurehead of the zeromq project I think you should know that the
zguide and its examples, whilst a worthy effort, is actually a barrier to
the progress of a learner. As a newcomer to networking my interactions and
attempts to learn and use zeromq over the past year has been an unyielding
source of issues to be overcome. Anyone else would probably have given up,
but I recognise the benefits of the superb technology offered by zeromq.
Part of the problem is perhaps that the zguide has been written by experts,
where seemingly minor details are glossed over. For example in the hwserver
and hwclient code it is not demonstrated how actually to read a message
payload from the socket and extract the received message string. It cheats
and prints; printf ("Received World %d\n", request_nbr); When someone tries
this early example the first thing they will experiment with is: How can I
customise the message payload and get my own message sent and received?
They will be disappointed. They might read on try to figure it out and be
baffled by the multiple language bindings, apis and helper files and left
wondering; what actually needs to be written to make zeromq work? What is
the core underlying zeromq commands which need to be called? What needs to
be installed? How do I do that? Where do I find the downloads?
I encountered a situation last year when I needed to use the common
technique of serialization to pass custom C++ objects over zeromq sockets.
While the zguide alludes to the possibility there was nothing to offer
assistance in the practical implementation. It took some considerable time,
weeks, to sort this out into a functioning prototype. Where a simple
functional guide example could have saved time and questions; not just for
me but also for any number of other users.
I find that the zguide code examples are in themselves problematic. The
example code is very sparsely commented. Every line which does something
non-trivial or zeromq specific should be explained. I have found examples
to be zeromq version specific, operating system specific and requiring
modifications to work on Windows. All of these factors just consume time in
endeavouring to make them work or debug them with limited understanding of
what is actually supposed to be happening. This causes questions and
frustrations.
CZMQ was recommended as the api to use with 'reference' C language code
examples, I lost more time trying to compile CZMQ before realising the
practical impossibility of this on Windows despite alluringly providing
Visual Studio project files. The lack of working installation instructions
was also a barrier. Then afterwards I discover that ROUTER sockets in
updated zeromq versions no longer use UUID identities thus anyway
invalidating the code example I was endeavouring to get working. More lost
time, more questions. No progress.
My suggestion is that if you want fewer basic questions asked in the
community then please take time to revisit the zguide, its examples and
necessary zeromq code resources and make it such that people can easily find
the resources they need, confidently learn and demonstrate the examples and
functionality for themselves; without enduring endless technical barriers
and frustrations.
I hope you will view my feedback as constructive.
All that said; which part of the guide should I read to solve my
DEALER-ROUTER issue, can I be confident that any associated zguide example
will actually work and help me to further understand how to solve my own
zeromq issues in the future?
Riskybiz.
Message: 29
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 11:29:01 +0200
From: Pieter Hintjens <p...@imatix.com>
Subject: Re: [zeromq-dev] DEALER-ROUTER question.
To: ZeroMQ development list <zeromq-dev@lists.zeromq.org>
Message-ID:
<CADL5_sjhfSqq_YDJq59pindtY3t15dUpiJVO3wr=qehn+ty...@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Please read the Guide and work through the examples, it has lots of
explanation and examples of how to do this kind of thing.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 10:36 AM, Riskybiz <riskybizl...@live.com> wrote:
> A quick question for the zeromq experts if I may?
>
>
>
> Given a DEALER to ROUTER zeromq connection which is able to operate
> asynchronously; what is the best way to coordinate inbound and outbound
> message handling such that the DEALER socket is not blocked and an
> application is able to react and send at a given moment but also to
promptly
> receive?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Riskybiz.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> zeromq-dev mailing list
> zeromq-dev@lists.zeromq.org
> http://lists.zeromq.org/mailman/listinfo/zeromq-dev
>
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