Scope
I recently experimented with reactive streams and built a small
component framework on top of this spec.
See https://github.com/cschneider/reactive-components
The goal is to have a small API that can encapsulate a protocol and
transport. The code using such a reactive component should not directly
depend on the specifics of the transport or protocol. Another goal is to
have reactive features like back pressure. Ultimately I am searching for
something like Apache Camel Components but with a lot less coupling. In
camel the big problem is that components depend on camel core which
unfortunately is much more than a component API. So any camel component
is coupled quite tightly to all of camel core.
Proposal
I propose to donate my code to Apache and establish this as a Apache
Karaf sub project. Some people like Jean-Baptiste and Hadrian have
already expressed that they support this and I hope for some more
feedback and help.
I chose the Karaf project at the moment but am also open to placing this
in another Apache project. Some matching projects would be Apache Camel,
Aries or Felix.
Component API
I was trying to find the simplest API that would allow similar
components to camel in one way mode.
public interface RComponent {
<T> Publisher<T> from(String destination, Class<T> type);
<T> Subscriber<T> to(String destination, Class<T> type);
}
A component is a factory for Publishers and Subscribers. From and to
have similar meaning as in camel. The component can be given a source /
target type to produce / consume. So with the OSGi Converter spec this
would allow to have type safe messaging without coding the conversion in
every component. Each component is exposed as a service which
encapsulates most of the configuration. All endpoint specific
configuration can be done using the destination String.
Publisher and Subscriber are interfaces from the reactive streams api
(http://www.reactive-streams.org/). So they are well defined and have
zero additional dependencies.
I also considered to use OSGi push streams which is an OSGi spec and
would also be an interesting foundation. I decided against that though
as push streams have no API that is separate from the DSL and will
probably not be used a lot outside of OSGi.
See the examples for how to use this in practice.
https://github.com/cschneider/reactive-components
Possible use cases
Two big use cases are reactive microservices that need messaging as well
as plain camel like integrations.
Another case are the Apache Karaf decanter collectors and appenders.
Currently they use a decanter specific API but they could easily be
converted into the more general rcomp api.
We could also create a bridge to camel components to leverage the many
existing camel components using the rcomp API as well as offering rcomp
components to camel.
Components alone are of course not enough. One big strength of Apache
Camel is the DSL. In case of rcomp I propose to not create our own DSL
and instead use existing DSLs that work well in OSGi. Two examples:
Akka and reactive streams
https://de.slideshare.net/ktoso/reactive-integrations-with-akka-streams
Reactor and reactive streams
https://de.slideshare.net/StphaneMaldini/reactor-30-a-reactive-foundation-for-java-8-and-spring
Another integration is with REST. It is already possible to integrate
CXF Rest services with reactive streams using some adapters but we could
have native integration.
Risks and Opportunities
The main risk I see is not gathering a critical mass of components to
draw more people.
Another risk is that the RComponent API or the reactor streams have some
unexpected limitations.
The big opportunity I see is that the rcomp API is very simple so the
barrier of entry is low.
I also hope that this might become a new foundation for a simpler and
more modern Apache Camel.
So this all depends on getting some support by you all.
Christian
--
Christian Schneider
http://www.liquid-reality.de
Open Source Architect
http://www.talend.com
