Allen, You've summarized what I wanted to say even better than I could (and believe me I tried!).
I really appreciate you taking the time to read and being receptive of my feedback. Thanks for personally committing to taking it into account in the future. Thrift is a great project and I would like to see it continue to thrive. -Renan On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 7:33 PM, Allen George <allen.geo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Renan - thanks for reaching out. Note that my comments are personal, and > I'm in no way speaking for the project or its members. > > I think your comments can be summarized as follows: > > 1. Breaking changes are made between releases without enough communication > 2. Changes are made without soliciting feedback from the community > 3. It's hard to understand what has changed from release to release > 4. In this specific instance, the repo change was not communicated to the > user list > > On the git issue specifically: personally, unless I work day-to-day with a > language I forget its idiosyncrasies. For example, while I work with Go off > and on, and it totally slipped my mind that imports are tied to actual repo > locations. So, what I thought of as an infrastructure-only change turned > into a larger issue. Second, I can say that what's considered a breaking > change can be a little murky, especially when dealing with code-generation. > There is, as you know, a cost to adding switches and introducing additional > code paths in the thrift compiler. And, sometimes, what seems like an > innocuous change can be depended on by downstream users. This is of course > tougher when you're dealing with many languages, each with their individual > cadences. > > That said, I've taken your point about communication to heart, and, for the > languages I work on, will make it a priority to: > > - keep a changelog > - solicit feedback from the user list when changing type details etc. wrt. > generated code. > > I appreciate your using Thrift, and sending this mail. > > Best, > Allen > > > > --- > > Terminal Musings: http://www.allengeorge.com/ > Twitter: https://twitter.com/allenageorge/ > Raft in Java: https://github.com/allengeorge/libraft/ > Thrift Rust Bindings: https://thrift.apache.org > > On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 1:03 PM, Renan DelValle <re...@apache.org> wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I'm a PMC of Apache Aurora, which uses Thrift. As part of my job, I > > maintain separate (from the apache project) thrift go bindings in order > to > > interact with Aurora. > > > > Yesterday, I had team members unable to compile my project because, > > suddenly, the Apache git repository for Thrift ( > git.apache.org/thrift.git) > > went missing. > > > > It took me far too long to find that there was a vote to move from this > > location that was originally taking place in private@[1] (which Jake > > Ferrell thankfully addressed). > > No official announcements were made as far as I can tell. > > > > This lack of communication isn't new as I'm continuously finding out (by > > reading the commit log) about changes that cause breakage between code > > generated by newer versions of Thrift and my codebase. > > > > Taking a look at the thrift/CHANGES[2] for example, the changes for > version > > 0.11.0 are not even listed. At the very least there should be release > notes > > warning users about breaking changes. > > > > In the past two versions of thrift, three changes broke backwards > > compatibility for go: > > > > * In version 0.10.0, the way sets are represented was changed[3]. > > > > * In version 0.11.0, the way sets are represented was changed again[4] > and > > context generation was added[5]. > > > > These created a ton of work for project maintainers to move from one > > version to another. > > > > When a user brought up the addition of context as breaking change[6], I > was > > disappointed to see maintainers seemingly dismiss his concerns instead of > > working to find a solution. For example, one solution is that this change > > could have been set behind a flag, allowing the user the flexibility to > > turn it off. (In fact, I created a JIRA issue to that end a while ago > [7].) > > > > I understand there is sometimes no way around making breaking changes > > between versions, but the lack of communication, and the seeming lack of > > concern for changing the generation in a way that breaks existing > projects, > > without publicly exploring alternatives, makes it difficult to advocate > for > > using Thrift for go based projects. > > > > Now that the location of the git repository changed, code generation is > > broken because all generated files try to import from > > git.apache.org/thrift.git forcing users to upgrade or to use dependency > > management capable of changing the source of this repository. > > > > This change is incredibly impactful, even to users dependent on older > > releases, so I'm curious about why this change was not communicated on > the > > user@ list? Further, why is it not listed anywhere on the website or > > repository that this is happening? And finally, why were the side-effects > > of this change not considered in the voting discussion[8]? > > > > Unfortunately, the list of users affected by this latest change will only > > continue to grow [9]. > > > > > > As a user who depends on the go Thrift library, the current situation is > > unacceptable, and I'm offering my help to alleviate these issues if it's > > required (and welcomed), but this should not go on any longer. Engagement > > with the community is a must. Not doing so is bad for users, is bad for > > adoption rates, and is unhealthy for the project. > > > > My hope is that this feedback is taken as constructive criticism and is > in > > no way meant to attack the project. I'm a volunteer as well, and I > greatly > > appreciate the effort and time maintainers and contributors put into this > > project. > > > > -Renan > > > > [1] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/thrift-dev/201804.mbox/% > > 3CCAHJqfcLgVZ0JKX2RGRvKkk5ksG9wfjigsscMbwjqmuXwvMPT1A%40mail.gmail.com > %3E > > [2] https://github.com/apache/thrift/blob/master/CHANGES > > [3] https://github.com/apache/thrift/pull/976 > > [4] https://github.com/apache/thrift/pull/1156 > > [5] https://github.com/apache/thrift/pull/1459 > > [6] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/THRIFT-4261 > > [7] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/THRIFT-4453 > > [8] http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/thrift-dev/201803.mbox/% > > 3CCY4PR2001MB1045B65EB761CD015624C5FAC8AA0%40CY4PR2001MB1045.namprd20. > > prod.outlook.com%3E > > [9] https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/THRIFT-4542 > > >
