IRC chat log discussing C++ release (Tuesday 6th June)

[Pete Robbins <ro...@googlemail.com>]

<robbinspg> The purpose of this chat is to decide what we need to do to get
a C++ binary release available
 <robbinspg> I'm not 100% on the Apache mechanism and logistics to do this
so that is one item discuss.
 <jsdelfino> hi
 <robbinspg> I'd also like to run through what function/code needs to go in
and documentation
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 <edslattery> and what sort of sample we would want to show
 <slaws> can you give us a status on where you are at with development, i.e.
is everything that is left to do recorded as a jira or is there other dev
going on
 <jsdelfino> we've just been through a java release, do u have specific
questions about the apache mechanisms and logistics?
 <ant_> i think it was on the mailing list, but what was the release date
you are aiming at?
 <robbinspg> The goal was "before ApacheCon Europe"
 <robbinspg> so the relweas date would be 23rd Jun
 <robbinspg> As far as Apache mechanisms go I understand we need a Release
Manager and also put the release to a vote (or 2) when we have a candidate
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 <jsdelfino> you need to plan for a vote on tuscany-dev, then a vote on the
incubator list, then be prepared to respin the 2 votes if any issues are
found with the release candidate
 <jsdelfino> each vote is 72 hours
 <robbinspg> So without the need for a re-vote we would need a candidate in
place by June 16th
 <robbinspg> if we were to make a June 23rd release
 <edslattery> I was thinking of working on bigbank for the release, but
jun16 is not going to be possible - we will have to think of a simpler
sample
 <haleh> let's focus on having a good content and quality first. This is the
first time we have a C++ release. First impression is important
 <robbinspg> I put a draft things-to-do wiki page up with what I would
consider essential
 <haleh> can you paste the link please?
 <jsdelfino> you already have a myvalue sample, a simplified bigbank sample
should not take too long to put together I guess, if you guys need help
maybe I can spend a little bit of time helping you with that
 <slaws> http://wiki.apache.org/ws/Tuscany/TuscanyCpp/Tasks
 <robbinspg> Functionally we need C++ component to C++ component
interactions (done), WS External Service using Axis2C and WS EntryPoint
using Axis2c
 <robbinspg> I have been working on the External Service code and Andrew
Borley is looking at the ws EntryPoint
 <jsdelfino> do u have any WSDL2C tool? do you need one?
 <ajborley> yep - Should have something before the end of the week
 <robbinspg> We also need a good sample, good doumentation and improved
testing
 <robbinspg> we do not have a wsdl2c tool at the moment
 <ajborley> There is no WSDL2C at the moment - it's scheduled after Axis2C
goes 1.0
 <jsdelfino> so I guess you're just going to document the mapping? and users
write the Cpp interface by hand?
 <robbinspg> Yes, and the mapping will have restrictions to start with
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 <jsdelfino> ok
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 <robbinspg> As part of the C++ C&I spec there is work going on to define a
WSDL to C++ mapping and the reverse mapping
 <ant_> Do you have a distribution build process set up yet? For the Java
release we endup spending quite a lot of time on that. Also the Incubator
people are quite fussy about how you package up a release. I can't think of
any other recent C++ releases from
 <ant_> incubating projects recently which means it may be hard to find out
exactly what you need to do. Could be worth asking them soon for examples,
or post a sample release for them to comment on before you put an actual
release candiate to a vote
 <robbinspg> ant_ well spotted... that is the major item I missed from the
list above. We do not have a distro build yet
 <ajborley> Axis2C have been doing a few releases recently. we could find
out what they do
 <robbinspg> axis2C have a recent release though this is C rather than C++
 <ajborley> true
 <haleh> Ant, are you saying work on distribution now rather than last few
days?
 <ant_> axis2c not incubating are they?
 <ajborley> I don't think so - latest release was 0.91
 <slaws> is there a difference between incubator builds and build from fully
fledged apache projects?
 <robbinspg> ok... so it's different for incubator projects
 <ant_> non-incubating releases get away with a lot that the incubator folks
would -1 if they get to vet a release
 <jsdelfino> yes, putting an incubating distribution together is major work,
we've just been through this, I recommend that you start now...
 <robbinspg> Is this mainly about the distro structure and licencing etc.
rather than content?
 <slaws> so the difference is that the fully fledged releases don't get
vetted
 <slaws> ?
 <jsdelfino> and check with the incubator folks all the policies and the
licenses, notices, status files that you need to have in the release
 <robbinspg> ok so where do the "incubator folks" hang out?
 <robbinspg> i.e. which mailing list can I post to
 <jsdelfino> general@incubator.apache.org
 <jsdelfino> and subscribe to the infrastructure as well
 <kgoodson> is all this "process wisdom" collected anywhere, I've been
searching the apache site and not found it
 <jsdelfino> the incubator mail archive is full of useful information
 <jsdelfino> let me give you some links:
 <robbinspg> ok thanks I'll follow that up.
 <jsdelfino> http://www.apache.org/dev/#releases
 <jsdelfino>
http://incubator.apache.org/incubation/Incubation_Policy.html#Releases
 <robbinspg> As far as content and other work items go can we go down the
list on the wiki and put some names next to them
 <robbinspg> Given the short time we have I think we can stick with myself
and Andrew Borley working on the Axis2C bindings
 <robbinspg> The SDO function required was the SDO to/from Axiom
 <robbinspg> I believe this is complete
 <edslattery> provided you dont get any more sdo requirements I can continue
with samples or whatever
 <ant_> i can help test the distribution out. i know very little about C++
so that should help test how accurate and simple your instructions are :)
 <edslattery> The SDO to/from AXIOM is OK - it should really be done
directly in memory, but at present is string serialized/deserialized - thats
no problem for now
 <robbinspg> ok. Samples... we have a basic Calculator sample already so we
need to decide on one more good sample
 <jsdelfino> I can help with some testing as well, and also with samples if
you need
 <slaws> so i have be raising a few JIRA against C++/SDO as a result of
interop testing so we should look at those, and JIRA in general, to decide
if any should be fixed
 <robbinspg> ant_ .. that would be great but you may have to wait a week or
so :-(
 <robbinspg> yes, we can have another chat to allocate Jira issues to the
release
 <robbinspg> So far I have Ed volunteering to work on samples. Maybe we can
have a mailing list discussion to decide on the sample content. BigBank is a
candidate
 <haleh> Are we at a point that we can start integration testing? Sebastien
volunteered for that :)
 <jsdelfino> do u guys have any web integration story? sorry if this a
stupid question :) but Bigbank would need a web ui part
 <edslattery> I have looked at the java bigbank - I can see I would not be
able to get the UI done in time, so was trying to write a C++ server using
the java client
 <robbinspg> not yet. We need to get the axis2c code in and I hope to dfo
that this week
 <jsdelfino> would it be PHP UI? or just an Ajax/Javascript UI maybe?
 <slaws> might be interesting to knock up a PHP UI. is there stuff in there
we can read from a DB?
 <slaws> show some SDO interop
 <haleh> robbinspg - how about using the release to show interop is working?

 <haleh> what's there to do? It is not on tasks list
 <slaws> haleh - do you mean java/C++ ws interop in this case?
 <robbinspg> interop via ws is the goal
 <slaws> and demonstrated in the sample?
 <haleh> yes, slaws
 <slaws> k
 <haleh> as well as ws interop
 <robbinspg> so if we get the axis2c code in we should be able to talk to
Java EntryPoints
 <edslattery> I dont think java/c++ interop directly is possible is it?
 <robbinspg> Java/C++ interop in a co-located system is not in plan
 <robbinspg> it could be done via JNI or nio or some optimisations but this
would be a sizeable piece of work
 <haleh> can someone summarize our story for interop for the release?
 <edslattery> ws
 <robbinspg> nothing to stop the Java folk looking at this though ;-)
 <jsdelfino> I think that having a java Tuscany talking to a Cpp Tuscany
using SOAP (not colocated) is interesting
 <robbinspg> it's the best we can do for now
 <jsdelfino> yes
 <haleh> should we have a sample for this?
 <robbinspg> well yes... I think that is what we are aiming for. This could
be a splitting of BigBank
 <robbinspg> into C++ and Java components
 <jsdelfino> with respect to building a UI for bigbank, I'm not sure if
showing a JSP UI talking to the Cpp runtime is really the interesting
scenario, I think having a PHP UI talking to the Cpp runtime is more
interesting, but I've not spent much time thinking about it so I may be
wrong
 <slaws> agreed - but the PHP bit wouldn;t be doing SCA things
 <edslattery> I was looking at what is already there for the front end to
save time. If we can do better that would be good..
 <slaws> i cant try and help out here if it would be useful
 <jsdelfino> yes agreed, it would have to use just SOAP to talk to the
Tuscany Cpp module
 <slaws> i can
 <slaws> yep
 <robbinspg> Can we take the design of an interop sample offline? Ed, can
you start a discussion on the mailing list saying where you are with looking
at Big Bank.
 <edslattery> I have the guts of the C++ backend written, but only using the
hardcoded data - no DAS
 <jsdelfino> rick is on the chat, he may be able to tell us if the Cpp
module could talk to a Java based module wrappering a DAS
 <jsdelfino> ok, better to dig into the design offline on the dev list :)
 <edslattery> Yep - will do - Ive got to drop off now, will start the chat
in a while
 <robbinspg> ok... so we also need someone to look at the distro build. I'll
take that on to start with
 <robbinspg> Then there is documentation...
 <slaws> this means web site also?
 <robbinspg> yes
 <robbinspg> I think we need a "Working with the source" documentation on
how to download/build/run etc.
 <haleh> something similar to javaproject page?
 <robbinspg> and a "Writing an SCA C++ app" document... a tutorial of
 <robbinspg> yes... similar to Java
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 <haleh> I can help with that if I get the content
 <jsdelfino> I can help provide the contents / detailed instructions to
build on Linux and windows, if you need that. I had to do it for Java it
should be similar.
 <haleh> good jsdelfino. send me the info
 <robbinspg> I think they are quite different
 <jsdelfino> I'll probably run into the traps, since it's all new to me :)
 <haleh> robbinspg - are you creating JIRAs for doc work?
 <robbinspg> no Maven
 <ajborley> what platforms are we aiming at? Just win32 & linux?
 <robbinspg> I will raise them
 <robbinspg> win32 and Linux
 <ajborley> (for bin releases)
 <jsdelfino> for source as well right?
 <robbinspg> yes... for bin
 <slaws> i will have to test builds for the PHP work so happy to do this
also Win XP/Fedora Core 5
 <jsdelfino> the automake stuff on linux is quite different from visual c++
:)
 <robbinspg> I guess so, though the automake build may work on other
platforms
 <robbinspg> OK... so before we end can I summarise:
 <robbinspg> Axis2C bindings: ajorley/robbins
 <robbinspg> Samples: edslattery to start discussion on mailing list, slaws
looking at PHP front-end?
 <robbinspg> Distro build: robbinspg
 <robbinspg> Doc: jsdelfino to help with build/install doc,
robbinspg/edslattery to write Sample tutorial, haleh to help with website
 <robbinspg> distro testing: ant_ kindly volunteered to test this out
 <robbinspg> anything I've missed?
 <haleh> one last thing after you are done
 <robbinspg> I'm done
 <haleh> If you need help on BigBank, I heard sebastien voluneering above :)

 <haleh> Also, we may want to take a look at the ws interop tests that we
have for Java and use them for C++
 <robbinspg> ok
 <haleh> :)
 <robbinspg> well it's time to go. I'll summarise this on the mailing list.
 <robbinspg> Thanks all
 <slaws> bye
 <kgoodson> bye
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 <ant_> bye
 <haleh> bye
 <robbinspg> just one more thing... are we supposed to have a release
manager?
 <ant_> yes
 <ant_> some one needs to be nominated/volunteer and then we vote for him
 <robbinspg> ok... so do we vote on that? I'd be happy to do that
 <robbinspg> That was me volunteering
 <ajborley> +1
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 <ant_> maybe best to do it on the mailing list now
 <robbinspg> good plan
 <robbinspg> bye
 <jsdelfino> bye guys
 =-= ant_ is now known as ant_away

-- 
Pete