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Re: [openstack-dev] [nova] Call for Help -- OpenStack API XML Support

 

Situations like this are always interesting to watch.  :-)

On the one hand its open-source, so if you care about something then put 
up the resources to make it happen.
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that as a developer you get to ignore 
the bigger picture and only do 1/2 of the work because you don't care 
about the other 1/2.

Overall, I tend to agree with the attitude that as long as XML is 
officially supported then all code changes need to make sure they run 
through both the JSON and XML codepaths. And if this means twice the 
testcases then so be it.  People committing code shouldn't have a choice 
in this - its either you do the full job or your code is rejected.

Having said that, it is a valid question to ask whether we want to 
continue to support both JSON and XML going forward.  But, until that 
decision is formally made letting 1/2 of the APIs atrophy makes the entire 
community look bad and therefore should not be allowed to happen. 

My vote: from now on don't let any code change in unless if works for 
both.  I suspect we'll either see the XML side come up to speed really 
quickly or it'll force an ugly vote.  But either way, this needs to be 
resolved before the next release.

thanks
-Doug
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George Reese <george.reese@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
08/09/2012 07:02 PM
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Re: [openstack-dev] [nova] Call for Help -- OpenStack API XML   Support






And this is why I go off on the developer-oriented mentality of the 
OpenStack community.

The fact that there is no one in the OpenStack developer community writing 
XML stuff is not a reflection of the fact that there's no huge desire for 
XML.

It's in the spec for a reason: BECAUSE ENTERPRISES USE XML HEAVILY

OpenStack developers aren't that audience. They use JSON.

That the project can get to this point and not have tests for these things 
shows a flaw in the development processes, not some grand illustration of 
supply and demand.

Do I really have to point out that if the spec calls for JSON and XML, you 
should bloody well write integration tests to check for JSON and XML?

You don't write whatever happens to please you.

You know how I know all of this? I have an API that supports both XML and 
JSON. I personally prefer JSON. Most of my friends and colleagues prefer 
and use JSON.

Most of my customers use XML.

Thank $deity I actually write unit tests for each format.

-George

File under:
-> statistics 101
-> software development 101

On Aug 9, 2012, at 5:52 PM, Vishvananda Ishaya <vishvananda@xxxxxxxxx> 
wrote:


On Aug 9, 2012, at 3:32 PM, George Reese <george.reese@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
wrote:

Why aren't the integration tests both XML and JSON?

The simple answer is that no one has taken the time to write them. Our 
devstack exercises use the python client bindings. Tempest has json 
clients but no xml clients[1]. I think this demonstrates that there just 
isn't a huge desire for xml. Users that I have chatted with just seem to 
care that the api works and that they they have good bindings.

I am definitely willing to be proven wrong on this point, but I'm secretly 
hoping everyone agrees with me. It is a lot of work to maintain three APIs 
(we are still maintaining EC2 as well) and keep them all functioning well, 
so if people are happy without OpenStack XML I would be perfectly content 
to deprecate it.

Vish

[1] 
https://github.com/openstack/tempest/tree/master/tempest/services/nova/xml

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George Reese (george.reese@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)
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