I just joined too, and tweeted. /******************************************* Joe Stein Founder, Principal Consultant Big Data Open Source Security LLC http://www.stealth.ly Twitter: @allthingshadoop <http://www.twitter.com/allthingshadoop> ********************************************/
On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 4:08 PM, Jay Kreps <jay.kr...@gmail.com> wrote: > Cool. I just joined. I'll add it to the website so others can find it. > If someone was willing to ping some of the other client developers and > get them to join as well that would probably give us critical mass. > > -Jay > > On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 9:08 AM, Dana Powers <dana.pow...@rd.io> wrote: > > I created kafka-clie...@groups.google.com > > > > https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/kafka-clients > > > > No members and no guidelines yet, but it's a start. Would love to get > this > > going. > > > > Dana > > On Aug 19, 2014 9:03 AM, "Mark Roberts" <wiz...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > >> Did this mailing list ever get created? Was there consensus that it did > or > >> didn't need created? > >> > >> -Mark > >> > >> > On Jul 18, 2014, at 14:34, Jay Kreps <jay.kr...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> > > >> > A question was asked in another thread about what was an effective way > >> > to contribute to the Kafka project for people who weren't very > >> > enthusiastic about writing Java/Scala code. > >> > > >> > I wanted to kind of advocate for an area I think is really important > >> > and not as good as it could be--the client ecosystem. I think our goal > >> > is to make Kafka effective as a general purpose, centralized, data > >> > subscription system. This vision only really works if all your > >> > applications, are able to integrate easily, whatever language they are > >> > in. > >> > > >> > We have a number of pretty good non-java producers. We have been > >> > lacking the features on the server-side to make writing non-java > >> > consumers easy. We are fixing that right now as part of the consumer > >> > work going on right now (which moves a lot of the functionality in the > >> > java consumer to the server side). > >> > > >> > But apart from this I think there may be a lot more we can do to make > >> > the client ecosystem better. > >> > > >> > Here are some concrete ideas. If anyone has additional ideas please > >> > reply to this thread and share them. If you are interested in picking > >> > any of these up, please do. > >> > > >> > 1. The most obvious way to improve the ecosystem is to help work on > >> > clients. This doesn't necessarily mean writing new clients, since in > >> > many cases we already have a client in a given language. I think any > >> > way we can incentivize fewer, better clients rather than many > >> > half-working clients we should do. However we are working now on the > >> > server-side consumer co-ordination so it should now be possible to > >> > write much simpler consumers. > >> > > >> > 2. It would be great if someone put together a mailing list just for > >> > client developers to share tips, tricks, problems, and so on. We can > >> > make sure all the main contributors on this too. I think this could be > >> > a forum for kind of directing improvements in this area. > >> > > >> > 3. Help improve the documentation on how to implement a client. We > >> > have tried to make the protocol spec not just a dry document but also > >> > have it share best practices, rationale, and intentions. I think this > >> > could potentially be even better as there is really a range of options > >> > from a very simple quick implementation to a more complex highly > >> > optimized version. It would be good to really document some of the > >> > options and tradeoffs. > >> > > >> > 4. Come up with a standard way of documenting the features of clients. > >> > In an ideal world it would be possible to get the same information > >> > (author, language, feature set, download link, source code, etc) for > >> > all clients. It would be great to standardize the documentation for > >> > the client as well. For example having one or two basic examples that > >> > are repeated for every client in a standardized way. This would let > >> > someone come to the Kafka site who is not a java developer, and click > >> > on the link for their language and view examples of interacting with > >> > Kafka in the language they know using the client they would eventually > >> > use. > >> > > >> > 5. Build a Kafka Client Compatibility Kit (KCCK) :-) The idea is this: > >> > anyone who wants to implement a client would implement a simple > >> > command line program with a set of standardized options. The > >> > compatibility kit would be a standard set of scripts that ran their > >> > client using this command line driver and validate its behavior. E.g. > >> > for a producer it would test that it correctly can send messages, that > >> > the ordering is retained, that the client correctly handles > >> > reconnection and metadata refresh, and compression. The output would > >> > be a list of features that passed are certified, and perhaps basic > >> > performance information. This would be an easy way to help client > >> > developers write correct clients, as well as having a standardized > >> > comparison for the clients that says that they work correctly. > >> > > >> > -Jay > >> >
