Infrastructure ticket opened: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/INFRA-7203

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Jan Lehnardt <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On 16 Jan 2014, at 20:42 , Paul Davis <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> It doesn't appear that this is objectionable to anyone. Does anyone
>> have an objection to us having infra/me create these repos to use for
>> the bigcouch/rcouch merge work? This won't affect master or releases
>> until those merges finish.
>
> no objections.
>
> Jan
> --
>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 11:02 PM, Paul J Davis
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> On Jan 14, 2014, at 8:37 PM, Benoit Chesneau <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 12:22 AM, Paul Davis 
>>>> <[email protected]>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I've recently been having discussions about how to handle the
>>>>> repository configuration for various bits of CouchDB post-merge. The
>>>>> work that Benoit has been doing on the rcouch merge branch have also
>>>>> touched on this topic as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> The background for those unfamiliar is that the standard operating
>>>>> procedure for Erlang is to have a single Erlang application per
>>>>> repository and then rely on rebar to fetch each dependency.
>>>>> Traditionally in CouchDB land we've always just included the source to
>>>>> all applications in a single monolithic repository and periodically
>>>>> reimport changes from upstream dependencies.
>>>>>
>>>>> Recently rcouch changed from the monolithic repository to use external
>>>>> repositories for some dependencies. Originally the BigCouch used an
>>>>> even more federated scheme that had each Erlang application in an
>>>>> external repository (and the core couch Erlang application was in the
>>>>> root repository). When Bob Newson and I did the initial hacking on the
>>>>> BigCouch merge we pulled those external dependencies into the root
>>>>> repository reverting back to the large monolithic approach.
>>>>>
>>>>> After trying to deal with the merge and contemplating how various
>>>>> Erlang release things might work it's become fairly apparent that the
>>>>> monolithic approach is a bit constrictive. For instance, part of
>>>>> rebar's versioning abilities lets you tag repositories to generate
>>>>> versions rather than manually updating versions in source files.
>>>>> Another thing I've found on other projects is that having each
>>>>> application in a separate repository requires developers to think a
>>>>> bit more detailed about the public internal interfaces used through
>>>>> out the system. We've done some work to this extent already with
>>>>> separating source directories but forcing commits to multiple
>>>>> repositories shoots up a big red flag that maybe there's a high level
>>>>> of coupling between two bits of code.
>>>>>
>>>>> Other benefits of having the multiple repository setup is that its
>>>>> possible that this lends itself to being integrated with the proposed
>>>>> plugin system. It'd be fairly trivial to have a script that went and
>>>>> fetched plugins that aren't developed at Apache (as a ./configure time
>>>>> switch type of thing). Having a system like this would also allow us
>>>>> to have groups focused on particular bits of development not have to
>>>>> concern themselves with the unrelated parts of the system.
>>>>>
>>>>> Given all that, I'd like to propose that we move to having a
>>>>> repository for each application/dependency that we use to build
>>>>> CouchDB. Each repository would be hosted on ASF infra and mirrored to
>>>>> GitHub as expected. This means that we could have the root repository
>>>>> be a simple repo that contains packaging/release/build stuff that
>>>>> would enable lots of the ideas offered on configurable types of
>>>>> release generation. I've included an initial list of repositories at
>>>>> the end of this email. Its basically just the apps that have been
>>>>> split out in either rcouch or bigcouch plus a few other bits from
>>>>> CouchDB master.
>>>>>
>>>>> I would also point out that even though our main repo would need to
>>>>> fetch other dependencies from the internet to build the final output,
>>>>> we fully intend that our release tarballs would *not* have this
>>>>> requirement. Ie, when we go to cut a release part of the process the
>>>>> RM would run would be to pull all of those dependencies before
>>>>> creating a tarball that would be wholly self contained. Given an
>>>>> apache-couchdb-x.y.z.tar.gz release file, there won't be a requirement
>>>>> to have access to the ASF git repos.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not entirely sure how controversial this is for anyone. For the
>>>>> most part the reactions I remember hearing were more concerned on
>>>>> whether the infrastructure team would allow us to use this sort of
>>>>> configuration. I looked yesterday and asked and apparently its
>>>>> something we can request but as always we'll want to verify again if
>>>>> we have consensus to move in this direction.
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyone have comments or flames? Right now I'm just interested in
>>>>> feeling out what sort of (lack of?) consensus there is on such a
>>>>> change. If there's general consensus I'd think we'd do a vote in a
>>>>> couple weeks and if that passes then start on down this road for the
>>>>> two merge projects and then it would become part of master once those
>>>>> land (as opposed to doing this to master and then attempting to merge
>>>>> rcouch/bigcouch onto that somehow).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> This is a quick pass at listing what extra repositories I'd have
>>>>> created. Some of these applications only exist in the bigcouch and/or
>>>>> rcouch branches so that's where the unfamiliar application names are
>>>>> from. I'd also point out that the documentation and fauxton things are
>>>>> just on a whim in that we could decouple that development from the
>>>>> erlang development. I can see arguments for an against those. I'm much
>>>>> less concerned on that aspect than the Erlang parts that are directly
>>>>> affected by rebar/Erlang conventions.
>>>>>
>>>>>   chttpd
>>>>>   config
>>>>>   couch
>>>>>   couch_collate
>>>>>   couch_dbupdates
>>>>>   couch_httpd
>>>>>   couch_index
>>>>>   couch_mrview
>>>>>   couch_plugins
>>>>>   couch_replicator
>>>>>   documentation
>>>>>   ddoc_cache
>>>>>   ets_lru
>>>>>   fabric
>>>>>   fauxton
>>>>>   ibrowse
>>>>>   jiffy
>>>>>   mem3
>>>>>   mochiweb
>>>>>   oauth
>>>>>   rebar
>>>>>   rexi
>>>>>   snappy
>>>>>   twig
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> I also contemplated this and and I am generally +1 on this. And definitely
>>>> +1 to mirror them on the apache git if possible.  I have a couple of
>>>> comments though.
>>>>
>>>> Initially I also had everything separated in its own source repository. 1
>>>> year ago I merged back as one core repo the couchdb erlang applications and
>>>> put all the dependencies in the refuge repository or in the refuge CDN for
>>>> the spidermonkey and ICU sources.
>>>>
>>>> I merged back as one core repo the couchdb erlang applications because they
>>>> were a little too much dependant. Especially couch_httpd, couch_index and
>>>> couch_mrview. These applications are not yet enough by themselves.
>>>>
>>>> Imo if we split everything in  their own apps, then we should make sure
>>>> that couch_httpd can be used without couch_index and couch_mrview (which
>>>> means that "all_docs" is available in couch_httpd). Also we should be able
>>>> to just launch couch without any of the above. And probably without the
>>>> need of an ini. The couch_query_server module thing is an interesting case.
>>>> bigcouch is also introducing `ddoc_cache` which I am not sure why it is
>>>> provided as a standalone app. Does it means it can be replaced by another
>>>> application eventually? Why not having it simply in the  couch application?
>>>> Does it needs to be updated separately?
>>>>
>>>> Also  all our base applications should also be named spaced correctly so
>>>> they will be strictly identified as erlang modules:  "config" is too
>>>> generic, "ddoc_cache" too. Others are probably OK.
>>>>
>>>> There are probably other things that we could provide as apps:
>>>>
>>>> - couch_daemon,
>>>> - couch_js
>>>> - couch_external
>>>> - couch_stats
>>>> - couch_compaction_daemon
>>>> - couch_httpd_proxy
>>>>
>>>> Anyway again i'm +1 for this move, I really think it's a good idea.
>>>>
>>>> - benoit
>>>
>>> I agree on most of this. Roughly I see three general points.
>>>
>>> First, deciding on whether some things are external deps is definitely up 
>>> for discussion. Whether couch_mrview is a different app/repo is not 
>>> necessarily clear cut. Personally I think I over engineered couch_index 
>>> which blurs the lines a bit. If I could wave a wand I'd have just 
>>> couch_mrview and it'd be separate. More importantly I think the separate 
>>> repos makes these things more apparent. The fact were discussing this sort 
>>> of architecture thing is suggestive that it's forcing us to think a bit 
>>> harder.
>>>
>>> Second is the aspect of composability. For instance the mrview thing to me 
>>> is obviously a different repo precisely so a user could import couch 
>>> (_core?) directly without requiring the spider monkey dependency. The 
>>> monolithic repo doesn't allow this without some very non-standard tooling.
>>>
>>> Thirdly, app naming is always a contention. The config name was actually a 
>>> hot code upgrade concern. We couldn't reuse couch_config directly at the 
>>> time. And Adam was also hopeful we could the it into a useful non-specific 
>>> config app.
>>>
>>> Fourthly, and related to secondly, we'll also want to look at splitting 
>>> other apps out as necessary. The ones you listed I think aren't 
>>> controversial it's just that no one has done it yet. My list was purely 
>>> what existed so far without attempting to carve things up more. I 
>>> definitely agree we should carve more in just wanted to cover consensus 
>>> that carving is the right direction.
>>>
>>> Fifthly, I'm done typing on my phone. I'll fill in more thoughts tomorrow.
>>>
>

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