> Personally, I think that it is good that moving from experimental to > non-experimental is a breaking change in the dependency - one has > backwards-incompatible changes and the other does not. If artifacts had > separate versioning we could use 0.x for this.
In theory it seems so, but in practice it is an annoyance to an end user that already took the ‘risk’ of using an experimental feature. Awareness is probably not the most important reason to break existing code (even if it could be easily fixed). The alternative of doing this with version numbers at least seems less impacting but can be confusing. > But biggest motivation for me are these: > > - using experimental features should be opt-in > - should be impossible to use an experimental feature without knowing it (so > "opt-in" to a normal-looking feature is not enough) > - developers of an experimental feature should be motivated to "graduate" it The fundamental problem of this approach is inconsistency with our present/past. So far we have ‘Experimental’ features everywhere. So suddenly becoming opt-in let us in an inconsistent state. For example all IOs are marked internally as Experimental but not at the level of directories/artifacts. Adding this suffix in a new IO apart of adding fear of use to the end users may also give the fake impression that the older ones not explicitly marked are not experimental. What will be the state for example in the case of runner modules that contain both mature and well tested runners like old Flink and Spark runners vs the more experimental new translations for Portability, again more confusion. > FWIW I don't think "experimental" should be viewed as a bad thing. It just > means you are able to make backwards-incompatible changes, and that users > should be aware that they will need to adjust APIs (probably only a little) > with new releases. Most software is not very good until it has been around > for a long time, and in my experience the problem is missing the mark on > abstractions, so backwards compatibility *must* be broken to achieve quality. > Freezing it early dooms it to never achieving high quality. I know of > projects where the users explicitly requested that the developers not freeze > the API but instead prioritize speed and quality. I agree 100% on the arguments, but let’s think in the reverse terms, highlighting lack of maturity can play against the intended goal of use and adoption even if for a noble reason. It is basic priming 101 [1]. > Maybe the word is just too negative-sounding? Alternatives might be > "unstable" or "incubating". Yes! “experimental” should not be viewed as a bad thing unless you are a company that has less resources and is trying to protect its investment so in that case they may doubt to use it. In this case probably incubating is a better term because it has less of the ‘tentative’ dimension associated with Experimental. > Now, for the Jet runner, most runners sit on a branch for a while, not being > released at all, and move to master as their "graduation". I think releasing > under an "experimental" name is an improvement, making it available to users > to try out. But we probably should have discussed before doing something > different than all the other runners. There is something I don’t get in the case of Jet runner. From the discussion in this thread it seems it has everything required to not be ‘experimental’. It passes ValidatesRunner and can even run Nexmark that’s more that some runners already merged in master, so I still don’t get why we want to give it a different connotation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology) On Sun, May 26, 2019 at 4:43 AM Kenneth Knowles <k...@apache.org> wrote: > > Personally, I think that it is good that moving from experimental to > non-experimental is a breaking change in the dependency - one has > backwards-incompatible changes and the other does not. If artifacts had > separate versioning we could use 0.x for this. > > But biggest motivation for me are these: > > - using experimental features should be opt-in > - should be impossible to use an experimental feature without knowing it (so > "opt-in" to a normal-looking feature is not enough) > - developers of an experimental feature should be motivated to "graduate" it > > So I think a user of an experimental feature should have to actually type the > word "experimental" either on the command line or in their dependencies. > That's just my opinion. In the thread [1] myself and Robert were the ones > that went in this direction of opt-in. But it was mostly lazy consensus, plus > the review on the pull request, that got us to this state. Definitely worth > discussing more. > > FWIW I don't think "experimental" should be viewed as a bad thing. It just > means you are able to make backwards-incompatible changes, and that users > should be aware that they will need to adjust APIs (probably only a little) > with new releases. Most software is not very good until it has been around > for a long time, and in my experience the problem is missing the mark on > abstractions, so backwards compatibility *must* be broken to achieve quality. > Freezing it early dooms it to never achieving high quality. I know of > projects where the users explicitly requested that the developers not freeze > the API but instead prioritize speed and quality. > > Maybe the word is just too negative-sounding? Alternatives might be > "unstable" or "incubating". > > Now, for the Jet runner, most runners sit on a branch for a while, not being > released at all, and move to master as their "graduation". I think releasing > under an "experimental" name is an improvement, making it available to users > to try out. But we probably should have discussed before doing something > different than all the other runners. > > Kenn > > [1] > https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/302bd51c77feb5c9ce39882316d391535a0fc92e7608a623d9139160@%3Cdev.beam.apache.org%3E > > On Sat, May 25, 2019 at 1:03 AM Ismaël Mejía <ieme...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> Including the experimental suffix in artifact names is not a good idea >> either because once we decide that it is not experimantal anymore this >> will be a breaking change for users who will need then to update its >> dependencies code. Also it is error-prone to use different mappings >> for directories and artifacts (even if possible). >> >> May we reconsider this Kenn? I understand the motivation but I hardly >> see this making things better or more clear. Any runner user will end >> up reading the runner documentation and capability matrix so he will >> catch the current status that way. >> >> >> >> On Sat, May 25, 2019 at 8:35 AM Jozsef Bartok <jo...@hazelcast.com> wrote: >> > >> > I missed Ken's input when writing my previous mail. Sorry. >> > So, to recap: I should remove "experimental" from any directory names, but >> > find an other way of configuring the artifact so that it still has >> > "experimental" in it's name. >> > Right? >> > >> > On Sat, May 25, 2019 at 9:32 AM Jozsef Bartok <jo...@hazelcast.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> Yes, I'll gladly fix it, we aren't particularly keen to be labeled as >> >> experimental either.. >> >> >> >> Btw. initially the "experimental" word was only in the Gradle module >> >> name, but then there was some change >> >> ([BEAM-4046] decouple gradle project names and maven artifact ids - >> >> 4/2/19) which kind of ended up >> >> putting it in the directory name. Maybe I should have merged with that >> >> differently, but this is how >> >> it seemed consistent. >> >> >> >> Anyways, will fix it in my next PR. >> >> >> >> On Fri, May 24, 2019 at 5:53 PM Ismaël Mejía <ieme...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> >> >>> I see thanks Jozsef, marking things as Experimental was discussed but >> >>> we never agreed on doing this at the directory level. We can cover the >> >>> same ground by putting an annotation in the classes (in particular the >> >>> JetRunner and JetPipelineOptions classes which are the real public >> >>> interface, or in the documentation (in particular website), I do not >> >>> see how putting this in the directory name helps and if so we may need >> >>> to put this in many other directories which is far from ideal. Any >> >>> chance this can be fixed (jet-experimental -> jet) ? >> >>> >> >>> On Fri, May 24, 2019 at 9:08 AM Jozsef Bartok <jo...@hazelcast.com> >> >>> wrote: >> >>> > >> >>> > Hi Ismaël! >> >>> > >> >>> > Quoting Kenn (from PR-8410): "We discussed on list that it would be >> >>> > better to have new things always start as experimental in a way that >> >>> > clearly distinguishes them from the core." >> >>> > >> >>> > Rgds >> >>> > >> >>> > On Thu, May 23, 2019 at 10:44 PM Ismaël Mejía <ieme...@gmail.com> >> >>> > wrote: >> >>> >> >> >>> >> I saw that the runner was merged but I don’t get why the foler is >> >>> >> called ‘runners/jet experimental’ and not simply ‘runners/jet’. Is it >> >>> >> because the runner does not pass ValidatesRunner? Or because the >> >>> >> contributors are few? I don’t really see any reason behind this >> >>> >> suffix. And even if the status is not mature that’s not different from >> >>> >> other already merged runners. >> >>> >> >> >>> >> On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 9:43 PM Kenneth Knowles <k...@apache.org> >> >>> >> wrote: >> >>> >> > >> >>> >> > Nice! That is *way* more than the PR I was looking for. I just >> >>> >> > meant that you could update the website/ directory. It is fine to >> >>> >> > keep the runner in your own repository if you want. >> >>> >> > >> >>> >> > But I think it is great if you want to contribute it to Apache Beam >> >>> >> > (hence donate it to the Apache Software Foundation). The benefits >> >>> >> > include: low-latency testing, free updates when someone does a >> >>> >> > refactor. Things to consider are: subject to ASF / Beam governance, >> >>> >> > PMC, commiters, subject to Beam's release cadence (and we might >> >>> >> > exclude from Beam releases for a little bit). Typically, we have >> >>> >> > kept runners on a branch until they are somewhat stable. I don't >> >>> >> > feel strongly about this for disjoint codebases that can easily be >> >>> >> > excluded from releases. We might want to suffix `-experimental` to >> >>> >> > the artifacts for some time. >> >>> >> > >> >>> >> > I commented on the PR about the necessary i.p. clearance steps. >> >>> >> > >> >>> >> > Kenn >> >>> >> > >> >>> >> > On Fri, Apr 26, 2019 at 3:59 AM jo...@hazelcast.com >> >>> >> > <jo...@hazelcast.com> wrote: >> >>> >> >> >> >>> >> >> Hi Kenn. >> >>> >> >> >> >>> >> >> It took me a while to migrate our code to the Beam repo, but I >> >>> >> >> finally have been able to create the Pull Request you asked for, >> >>> >> >> this is it: https://github.com/apache/beam/pull/8410 >> >>> >> >> >> >>> >> >> Looking forward to your feedback! >> >>> >> >> >> >>> >> >> Best regards, >> >>> >> >> Jozsef >> >>> >> >> >> >>> >> >> On 2019/04/19 20:52:42, Kenneth Knowles <k...@apache.org> wrote: >> >>> >> >> > The ValidatesRunner tests are the best source we have for >> >>> >> >> > knowing the >> >>> >> >> > capabilities of a runner. Are there instructions for running the >> >>> >> >> > tests? >> >>> >> >> > >> >>> >> >> > Assuming we can check it out, then just open a PR to the website >> >>> >> >> > with the >> >>> >> >> > current capabilities and caveats. Since it is a big deal and >> >>> >> >> > could use lots >> >>> >> >> > of eyes, I would share the PR link on this thread. >> >>> >> >> > >> >>> >> >> > Kenn >> >>> >> >> > >> >>> >> >> > On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 11:53 AM Jozsef Bartok >> >>> >> >> > <jo...@hazelcast.com> wrote: >> >>> >> >> > >> >>> >> >> > > Hi. We at Hazelcast Jet have been working for a while now to >> >>> >> >> > > implement a >> >>> >> >> > > Java Beam Runner (non-portable) based on Hazelcast Jet ( >> >>> >> >> > > https://jet.hazelcast.org/). The process is still ongoing ( >> >>> >> >> > > https://github.com/hazelcast/hazelcast-jet-beam-runner), but >> >>> >> >> > > we are >> >>> >> >> > > aiming for a fully functional, reliable Runner which can >> >>> >> >> > > proudly join the >> >>> >> >> > > Capability Matrix. For that purpose I would like to ask what’s >> >>> >> >> > > your process >> >>> >> >> > > of validating runners? We are already running the >> >>> >> >> > > @ValidatesRunner tests >> >>> >> >> > > and the Nexmark test suite, but beyond that what other steps >> >>> >> >> > > do we need to >> >>> >> >> > > take to get our Runner to the level it needs to be at? >> >>> >> >> > > >> >>> >> >> >
