The goals of the CEP are stated clearly, and these were the goals we had going
into the (multi-month) research project we undertook before proposing this CEP.
These goals are necessarily value judgements, so we cannot expect that everyone
will agree that they are optimal.
So far you have not engaged with these goals to state any specific
disagreement. I have engaged with all of the trade-offs you imagined, and every
specific concern you have raised. Despite a month having elapsed and a great
deal of time spent answering your emails, this is the first confirmation I have
that you are dissatisfied with my responses to you.
The role of the CEP is to advertise a project, allowing people to register
their interest in collaborating, and for technical concerns to be stated in
advance. So far you have expressed no specific technical concerns that I have
not engaged with, and yet I have received no response to my engagements.
The role of the CEP is *not* to permit members of the community to dictate
their preferences on the proposers, or to declare that the CEP is inadequate
because it doesn’t meet their goals, or to demand additional work to explore
others’ preferred research avenues on the topic.
You have to do some of the work here, Jonathan.
If you have an alternative approach, I continue to ask you to propose it so we
may compare and contrast in a specific and technical manner. If you have any
specific technical concerns I exhort you to raise them, so we my discuss them.
If you dispute the goals, please make an argument as to why. If our goals are
irreconcilable, file another CEP.
From: Jonathan Ellis <jbel...@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, 6 October 2021 at 14:41
To: dev <dev@cassandra.apache.org>
Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] CEP-15: General Purpose Transactions
I've repeatedly explained why I'm unhappy: instead of starting with a
discussion of what API and tradeoffs we should make to get that, this CEP
starts with a protocol and asks us to figure out what API we can build with
it.
Of course by API I mean, what kinds of CQL and SQL operations we can
perform, with what kinds of ACID semantics and what kinds of performance,
not "Result perform(Transaction transaction)". And it's not simply SQL
syntax, either. I realize that this could sound a little vague, but that's
why I gave an example of the kind of analysis I'm talking about in my first
reply. Your responses have been to attempt to avoid the discussion
entirely ("the relevant goals are [mine]") or to declare it to be out of
scope.
The CEP process is intended to help get to alignment across the community
of PMC members, committers, and contributors on goals and outcomes before
starting in writing code, not simply to bless a completed design. That's
why we're going in circles here.
On Wed, Oct 6, 2021 at 2:12 AM bened...@apache.org <bened...@apache.org>
wrote:
> We have discussed the API at length in this thread. The API primarily
> involves the semantics of the transactions, as besides this the API of a
> transaction is simply:
>
> Result perform(Transaction transaction)
>
> As discussed in follow-up to that email, a prototype API is specified
> alongside the prototype protocol. I am unsure what more you want than this,
> or the above, or the prior semantic discussions.
>
> It seems clear that you’re unhappy with the proposal, but it remains
> ambiguous as to why. Your emails are terse, infrequent and unclear. My
> responses receive no follow up from you, even to clarify if I have answered
> your query. Sometime later I seem to be able to expect a new unrelated
> problem that you are unhappy about. You have not yet responded to even one
> of my repeated offers to hop on a call to hash out any of your concerns,
> even if only to decline.
>
> This does not feel like constructive and respectful engagement to me, and
> I am losing interest.
>
>
>
> From: Jonathan Ellis <jbel...@gmail.com>
> Date: Wednesday, 6 October 2021 at 00:02
> To: dev <dev@cassandra.apache.org>
> Subject: Re: [DISCUSS] CEP-15: General Purpose Transactions
> I honestly can't understand the perspective that on the one hand, you're
> asking for approval of a specific protocol as part of the CEP, but on the
> other, you think discussion of the APIs this will enable is not warranted.
> Surely we need agreement on what APIs we're trying to build, before we
> discuss the protocols and architectures with which to build them.
>
> On Fri, Oct 1, 2021 at 9:34 AM bened...@apache.org <bened...@apache.org>
> wrote:
>
> > > The current document details thoroughly the protocol but in my view
> > lacks to illustrate what specific API, methods, modules will become
> > available to developers
> >
> > With respect to this, in my view this kind of detail is not warranted
> > within a CEP. Software development is an exploratory process with respect
> > to structure, and these decisions will be made as the CEP progresses. If
> > these need to be specified upfront, then the purpose of a CEP – seeking
> buy
> > in – is invalidated, because the work must be complete before you know
> the
> > answers.
> >
