I heard Maven next gen is coming with Gradle like? *-old Play conf style-* where you can mix and match XML with free style POM definition, I haven't got the opportunity to work with very big teams where each sub-project is a piece of something and eventually everything becomes a nightmare so for now, for the projects I have worked I tend to use simplistic setups and try to pattern-ize everything.
As example, I have this utility class to create actor systems with its corresponding supervisor actor which inherits from a mega super class with several template methods to do all the things, then the specific things to implement at very minimal. The other thing of course is Scala, which is nice, with Java 8 now things are less verbose for Java developers but I can see the trends moving towards Scala, though I would mix them both nicely, for small teams productivity isn't more than finding the perfect development environment where a developer can focus on what he/she is hired to do: deliver business logic well implemented so that is what I have tried and maybe *-too early to tell though it is in production-* succeeded. I find in particular Maven app assembler an awesome plugin, it gives the developer a way to provide execution scripts to admins, then admins can do whatever they want, docker or supervisord, etc etc. Next phase of the project after basic system is build is monitoring, and because money is not the real problem I think it will be about time to buy something like ConductR or something, let's see what is out there when the time comes. I want to reach the climax of the project so that I can focus more on Akka and Scala and at the same time contribute here and there. Best regards, Guido. On Tuesday, June 16, 2015 at 9:59:53 PM UTC+1, Brian Topping wrote: > > Congrats Guido, sounds like you've done a great job. When the customer is > happy... :-) > > So that you know, there are a few of us using Scala with Maven. As someone > who once suffered through Ant, I prefer the encapsulation of > functional/procedural code in plugins. As you may know, the SBT plugin for > IntelliJ needs to do a "build" with a special SBT plugin inserted in order > to extract the build configuration, like Ant builds of yore, there's no way > to reliably extract SBT configuration across versions without doing things > this way. There's nothing wrong with that and it works, but my mind also > thinks in this declarative way now about builds, so I tend towards Maven, > XML and all. > > What I do is commit to starting one new project every year in SBT to see > if I can make it "stick". There are some projects coming along like ScalaJS > that probably won't have a Maven plugin for a long time since there's > nobody to support it. That will be the kind of thing that will probably tip > the scales for me. Like Scala and Akka, SBT has been coming along nicely > and now that the "heavy lifting" patterns are established, there's time and > experience to make it a more enjoyable and productive environment. > > If you're interested in a nice template for Scala, you might want to check > out https://github.com/hseeberger/reactive-flows/. Heiko has done an > stellar job of assembling all the best widgets for a clustered app with > Akka-HTTP, including showing how to test with it. I've been banging on it > to try to make the app more modular and in line with DDD patterns since > it's already CQRS/ES friendly. If you get some free time, check it out! > > best, Brian > > On Jun 16, 2015, at 1:14 PM, Guido Medina <[email protected] <javascript:>> > wrote: > > Hi, > > This is not exactly a question, more like a discussion and sharing some of > my experiences lately, most of it for medium+ size companies might not make > much sense but for overloaded small teams with one or two developers doing > everything, here is my *-as short as I can describe it-* story: > > I was hired to continue developing a system, but such system was doing > anything and the premise was to use X asynchronous framework *-won't say > the name-* to build a high available and scalable system initially > with several Maven projects and Eclipse. > > Everything looked perfect until I discovered the project was a green-field > project with thousands of lines and it was not working so I decided to > scratch it, first I had to convince management that Akka was the way to go > and to do that I had 3 weeks to build a prototype that could deliver the > basic functionalities so I had to make quick decisions and learn Akka while > going: > > - *Development environment:* No doubt, IntelliJ, I was willing to buy > it myself if they wouldn't, I'm not too fond of SBT so I'm doing > everything > with Maven, my project is written in Java 8 but it has already the Scala > compiler so I can add Scala code if I want to, also IntelliJ Scala plugin > is good to look at API source code and stuff. > - *Project structure:* Maven parent project with modules, a common > module for shared data structures, utilities and messages, a very minimal > number of dependencies, for example I was using Jackson Json but there > were > like 4 jars so I switched to a lighter and smaller Jar - Gson. > - *Execution:* Each module is just a Java main with an ActorSystem, > common.conf from common module dictates general config that are included > into each module_name.conf > - *Akka cluster/remote:* The project was designed from the beginning > with location transparency and scale-ability in mind. > - *Execution inside IntelliJ:* Easy because each module is just a Java > main. > - *Maven profiles:* Help me create deployment options for different > environments like dev, test, uat, etc. > - *Maven runners:* There is a mirror project which has the same > structure as the main project but it only acts as script builder and > application assembler to create easy executables using Maven app > assembler, > due to all problems I have heard, I preferred not to use shaded nor fat > jars, instead something else generates the script (module_name.sh, > module_name.bat) for me so all I have to do is pass such scripts to IT > admin: http://www.mojohaus.org/appassembler/appassembler-maven-plugin/ > - *Location transparency and caches:* I have a sort of a address book > per module, each module instance subscribe to relevant cluster events and > when it does it knows *-by convention-* what supervisor it needs to > send a message to initiate the handshake, say a module named "strategy" > comes up, that module has the role "strategy" so I know at that node > address/user/strategy is a supervisor running, so I send my actor ref, > once > it gets it, it sends to me his actor refs cache -children- and then I have > a local cache with addresses, so if I need to locate some account ID, I > just look up by Integer in my cache and I get an ActorRef, or I could look > for a round robin router because some components are load balanced so each > other supervisor keeps a round robin router updated. > - *Dispatchers and mail boxes:* It wasn't easy to come up with a good > design initially, I was using the default dispatcher, now I have the > default dispatcher modified, a dispatcher for blocking operations, Netty > server and client pools customized, Kryo serialization > and SingleConsumerOnlyUnboundedMailbox, this is the aspect most of us will > spend most time, be ready for the inevitable consequences here, you will > play with these hundreds of times. > > > *Why did I make such decisions?* > > - Time wasn't in my favor, I wanted to use something that just works, > and location transparency + cluster + local caches is doing a nice job for > me. > > > *What problems am I facing now?* > > - Only few, now I have to build the UI of a system that it is running > in production making real transactions but I'm waiting on Akka HTTP's docs > for Java, yeah I know Scala is there but remember, time, Scala is on my > list and it is going to happen because I say so :D but not yet. > - Akka remote is not behaving excellently but I expect that to > improve, fortunately my project required max time of 5ms and my system is > doing from 1ms to 4ms with a caveat, first few messages take 50ms and > eventually *-sooner rather than later-* it goes down to within > parameters. > > *Moving forward:* > > - There were desperate moments because the old project took the > company 1 year plus the money spent and nothing was delivered so I was on > a > very bad position, I didn't know this at the interview but I moved > forward, > now management is very happy because magic happened, so thank you Typesafe > for producing Akka, it helped me focus on the business logic and not on > the > technical details *-yeah, people who knows me will say, you, not > worrying about micro optimizations?-*, this time I needed something > that allowed me to be practical and fast and Akka did it. > - Monitoring, I think we will go ConductR route, but still I need to > produce the rest of the system so that we can monitor *a system.* > - AngularJS + Akka HTTP for REST and web sockets, because my project > is mainly beta, when I'm done I hope they are kind of optimized. > > > And now I will stop writing, it has been a long day *-the last 4 months > every day has been a long day-* > > Hope this helps you when starting your Akka project, this also applies to > Scala btw. > > I have been developing this project using a company's laptop which only > has 8GB of RAM, spinning disk *-why not a SSD !!!-* and there I have to > run IntelliJ + several JVMs + database so you will find Maven more > beneficial than SBT for such purposes *-at least when using it built-in > with IntelliJ-* > > *Note:* I'm a non-English native speaker so you will find some non-sense, > more likely a bunch of ideas put together like a big Spaghetti plate. > > Best regards, > > Guido. > > -- > >>>>>>>>>> Read the docs: http://akka.io/docs/ > >>>>>>>>>> Check the FAQ: > http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/current/additional/faq.html > >>>>>>>>>> Search the archives: https://groups.google.com/group/akka-user > --- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Akka User List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > <javascript:>. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/akka-user. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- >>>>>>>>>> Read the docs: http://akka.io/docs/ >>>>>>>>>> Check the FAQ: >>>>>>>>>> http://doc.akka.io/docs/akka/current/additional/faq.html >>>>>>>>>> Search the archives: https://groups.google.com/group/akka-user --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Akka User List" group. 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