From Suhasini.Peddada@Sun.COM Wed Oct 21 16:29:27 2009 Received: from sunmail3mpk.sfbay.sun.com (sunmail3mpk.SFBay.Sun.COM [129.146.11.52]) by sac.sfbay.sun.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n9LNTRvr015140 for ; Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:29:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com (brm-avmta-1.Central.Sun.COM [129.147.4.11]) by sunmail3mpk.sfbay.sun.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8/ENSMAIL,v2.4) with ESMTP id n9LNTR85017606 for <@sunmail2sca.sfbay.sun.com:PSARC-ext@sun.com>; Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:29:27 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pmxchannel-daemon.brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com by brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) id <0KRW00B07193X300@brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:29:27 -0600 (MDT) Received: from sca-es-mail-2.sun.com ([192.18.43.133]) by brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) with ESMTP id <0KRW005091922H90@brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:29:27 -0600 (MDT) Received: from fe-sfbay-10.sun.com ([192.18.43.129]) by sca-es-mail-2.sun.com (8.13.7+Sun/8.12.9) with ESMTP id n9LNTQpR015983 for ; Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:29:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from conversion-daemon.fe-sfbay-10.sun.com by fe-sfbay-10.sun.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.04 64bit (built Jul 2 2009)) id <0KRW00M00189NG00@fe-sfbay-10.sun.com> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:29:26 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [129.145.154.60] ([unknown] [129.145.154.60]) by fe-sfbay-10.sun.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.04 64bit (built Jul 2 2009)) with ESMTPSA id <0KRW00F4D18THU90@fe-sfbay-10.sun.com>; Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:29:20 -0700 (PDT) Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:29:17 -0700 From: Suhasini Peddada Subject: [2009/471] OpenSolaris Distribution Constructor - Inception AIs Sender: Suhasini.Peddada@Sun.COM To: PSARC-ext@Sun.COM Cc: Karen Tung Reply-to: Suhasini.Peddada@Sun.COM Message-id: <4ADF994D.40909@sun.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-PMX-Version: 5.4.1.325704 User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.21 (X11/20090311) Status: RO Content-Length: 1318 Hello All, Here are the AI's from today's inception review of PSARC 2009/471. Please let me know, in case any corrections/modifications are required: 1) Investigate whether JSON is better than XML for the manifest. 2) ManifestServ and ManifestRead o man page needed for ManifestRead documenting how it can be used. o Check to make sure ManifestRead and ManifestServ meets the utility syntax guideline for commands. 3) Schema for the DC manifest. o Need to include schema for the manifest in the design specification. o Need to detail how version control is done for the schema. 4) Finalizer scripts o Need to specify sample finalizer scripts that's delivered as part of DC as exported interfaces, with low stability level. o When the ARC case detailing those scripts are presented, their stability level can be raised. 5) Requirement for uid==0 o Need to make sure DC does not require uid==0 o To provide better user experience, have finalizer scripts register the privileges as it needs to run successfully, and have DC check for those privileges when it starts. 6) Checkpointing/zfs: o Need to have explicit statement in design document about the requirement that the build area needs to be on it's own ZFS file system. Thanks, -Suha From swalker@opensolaris.org Thu Oct 22 07:31:59 2009 Received: from sunmail2sca.sfbay.sun.com (sunmail2sca.SFBay.Sun.COM [129.145.155.234]) by sac.sfbay.sun.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n9MEVxJC011859 for ; Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:31:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nwk-avmta-1.SFBay.Sun.COM (nwk-avmta-1.SFBay.Sun.COM [129.146.11.74]) by sunmail2sca.sfbay.sun.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8/ENSMAIL,v2.4) with ESMTP id n9MEVx39006711; Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:31:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from pmxchannel-daemon.nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM by nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) id <0KRX00H0571AL800@nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM>; Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:31:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jurassic-x4600.sfbay.sun.com ([129.146.17.59]) by nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) with ESMTP id <0KRX00ET771ABN20@nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM>; Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:31:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [129.148.19.35] (punchin-client-129-148-19-35.East.Sun.COM [129.148.19.35]) by jurassic-x4600.sfbay.sun.com (8.14.3+Sun/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n9MEVvQp255978; Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:31:57 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:31:56 -0500 From: Shawn Walker Subject: Re: [2009/471] OpenSolaris Distribution Constructor - Inception AIs In-reply-to: <4ADF994D.40909@sun.com> To: Suhasini.Peddada@sun.com Cc: PSARC-ext@sun.com, Karen Tung Message-id: <4AE06CDC.5080407@opensolaris.org> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-PMX-Version: 5.4.1.325704 References: <4ADF994D.40909@sun.com> User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090929) Status: RO Content-Length: 1054 Suhasini Peddada wrote: > Hello All, > > Here are the AI's from today's inception review of PSARC 2009/471. > Please let me know, in case any corrections/modifications are required: > > 1) Investigate whether JSON is better than XML for the manifest. Some things to be aware of with JSON: * doesn't support comments * only supports Unicode; this means no Big5, etc. encoding (unless there's a Unicode representation of that) * is not a container format; that means that you cannot put mutiple JSON serializations (documents) in a single file Some things about the Python simplejson module (likely the best implementation available for Python): * significantly worse performance on SPARC vs. x86 for very large data structures with a depth of more than three or four levels; this of course can probably be fixed * don't know if it supports beyond UTF-8 * not native to Python 2.4, although we ship the simplejson module for it; python versions 2.6 and newer include it as part of the core under the name 'json' Cheers, -- Shawn Walker From Sarah.Jelinek@sun.com Fri Oct 23 09:44:21 2009 Received: from newsunmail1brm.central.sun.com (newsunmail1brm.Central.Sun.COM [129.147.62.245]) by sac.sfbay.sun.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n9NGiLiW023575 for ; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:44:21 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com (brm-avmta-1.Central.Sun.COM [129.147.4.11]) by newsunmail1brm.central.sun.com (8.13.7+Sun/8.13.7/ENSMAIL,v2.2) with ESMTP id n9NGiIHv057681 for <@sunmail2sca.sfbay.sun.com:PSARC-ext@sun.com>; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:44:20 -0600 (MDT) Received: from pmxchannel-daemon.brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com by brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) id <0KRZ00J257TVHF00@brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:44:19 -0600 (MDT) Received: from brmea-mail-4.sun.com ([192.18.98.36]) by brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) with ESMTP id <0KRZ00GQ37TUV510@brm-avmta-1.central.sun.com> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:44:18 -0600 (MDT) Received: from fe-amer-10.sun.com ([192.18.109.80]) by brmea-mail-4.sun.com (8.13.6+Sun/8.12.9) with ESMTP id n9NGiIh5029544 for ; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:44:18 +0000 (GMT) Received: from conversion-daemon.mail-amer.sun.com by mail-amer.sun.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.04 64bit (built Jul 2 2009)) id <0KRZ000007AQW800@mail-amer.sun.com> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:44:18 -0600 (MDT) Received: from [192.168.0.22] ([unknown] [206.53.31.250]) by mail-amer.sun.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.04 64bit (built Jul 2 2009)) with ESMTPSA id <0KRZ008BO7TRCJE0@mail-amer.sun.com>; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:44:15 -0600 (MDT) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:44:14 -0600 From: Sarah Jelinek Subject: Re: [2009/471] OpenSolaris Distribution Constructor - Inception AIs In-reply-to: <4AE06CDC.5080407@opensolaris.org> Sender: Sarah.Jelinek@sun.com To: Shawn Walker Cc: Suhasini.Peddada@sun.com, PSARC-ext@sun.com, Karen Tung Message-id: <4AE1DD5E.9020707@sun.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-PMX-Version: 5.4.1.325704 References: <4ADF994D.40909@sun.com> <4AE06CDC.5080407@opensolaris.org> User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090929) Status: RO Content-Length: 1837 Shawn Walker wrote: > Suhasini Peddada wrote: >> Hello All, >> >> Here are the AI's from today's inception review of PSARC 2009/471. >> Please let me know, in case any corrections/modifications are required: >> >> 1) Investigate whether JSON is better than XML for the manifest. > > Some things to be aware of with JSON: > > * doesn't support comments > > * only supports Unicode; this means no Big5, etc. encoding (unless > there's a Unicode representation of that) I don't think there is a full representation of Big5, in particular the Big5 extensions to Unicode. > > * is not a container format; that means that you cannot put mutiple JSON > serializations (documents) in a single file I am not sure this would be an issue for us at this time. but, certainly something to be aware of. > Some things about the Python simplejson module (likely the best > implementation available for Python): > > * significantly worse performance on SPARC vs. x86 for very large data > structures with a depth of more than three or four levels; this of > course can probably be fixed > > * don't know if it supports beyond UTF-8 It does.. it supports UTF-16 and UTF-32, although it requires a different content transfer encoding mechanism. > > * not native to Python 2.4, although we ship the simplejson module for > it; python versions 2.6 and newer include it as part of the core under > the name 'json' My biggest concerns about moving to JSON are: -No commenting. We absolutely need this for clarity. We do not have any tools to generate or modify our manifests, so the comments in our current manifests help users understand the contents. -Unicode only support. I don't think that JSON is a viable option for us at this point. As a result, my recommendation is to continue using XML. thanks, sarah *** > Cheers, From swalker@opensolaris.org Fri Oct 23 09:52:32 2009 Received: from newsunmail1brm.central.sun.com (newsunmail1brm.Central.Sun.COM [129.147.62.245]) by sac.sfbay.sun.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n9NGqVvH023716 for ; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:52:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com (nwk-avmta-2.SFBay.Sun.COM [129.145.155.6]) by newsunmail1brm.central.sun.com (8.13.7+Sun/8.13.7/ENSMAIL,v2.2) with ESMTP id n9NGqJ0E064104; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:52:30 -0600 (MDT) Received: from pmxchannel-daemon.nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com by nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) id <0KRZ00J0N87HLZ00@nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com>; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:52:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from jurassic-x4600.sfbay.sun.com ([129.146.17.63]) by nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) with ESMTP id <0KRZ00F3N87GL650@nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com>; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:52:28 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [129.148.19.35] (punchin-client-129-148-19-35.East.Sun.COM [129.148.19.35]) by jurassic-x4600.sfbay.sun.com (8.14.3+Sun/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n9NGqQjR920934; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:52:27 -0700 (PDT) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:52:26 -0500 From: Shawn Walker Subject: Re: [2009/471] OpenSolaris Distribution Constructor - Inception AIs In-reply-to: <4AE1DD5E.9020707@sun.com> To: Sarah Jelinek Cc: Suhasini.Peddada@sun.com, PSARC-ext@sun.com, Karen Tung Message-id: <4AE1DF4A.90703@opensolaris.org> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-PMX-Version: 5.4.1.325704 References: <4ADF994D.40909@sun.com> <4AE06CDC.5080407@opensolaris.org> <4AE1DD5E.9020707@sun.com> User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (X11/20090929) Status: RO Content-Length: 1601 Sarah Jelinek wrote: > My biggest concerns about moving to JSON are: > -No commenting. We absolutely need this for clarity. We do not have any > tools to generate or modify our manifests, so the comments in our > current manifests help users understand the contents. The original JSON specification supported comments, but in later versions they removed this for the lame reason that "no-one used it" as best I can tell. > -Unicode only support. > > I don't think that JSON is a viable option for us at this point. As a > result, my recommendation is to continue using XML. So despite these disadvantages, there are a few things about JSON (and this is why we ended up using it for pkg(5)) that are very attractive: * far more readable to mere mortals than XML, example: { "publishers": ["opensolaris.org", "sun.com"], "packages": ["foo", "bar", "baz"], } Imagine the same in XML :) This also significantly can reduce file size. * almost a one-to-one mapping between python native data types and serialized output (which meant we could just dump an in-memory python data structure directy to disk and then read it back without any transformation; assuming only strings, numbers) If the Unicode only aspect doesn't bother you, and you can come up with a basic container format that allows comments, and none of the other issues are a problem, then the advantages above may be more important to you. It isn't an easy choice, and I won't try to persuade you one way or another. If you're already using XML and everyone's happy, then go for it :) Cheers, -- Shawn Walker From kmcdonald@egenera.com Fri Oct 23 10:27:04 2009 Received: from newsunmail1brm.central.sun.com (newsunmail1brm.Central.Sun.COM [129.147.62.245]) by sac.sfbay.sun.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n9NHR44o024478 for ; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:27:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com (nwk-avmta-2.SFBay.Sun.COM [129.145.155.6]) by newsunmail1brm.central.sun.com (8.13.7+Sun/8.13.7/ENSMAIL,v2.2) with ESMTP id n9NHR2lp019435; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:27:03 -0600 (MDT) Received: from pmxchannel-daemon.nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com by nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) id <0KRZ00L0H9T1UX00@nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com>; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:27:01 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sca-ea-mail-4.sun.com ([192.18.43.22]) by nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) with ESMTP id <0KRZ00F2W9T0KG70@nwk-avmta-2.sfbay.sun.com>; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:27:00 -0700 (PDT) Received: from relay14i.sun.com (ip124.net129179-4.block1.us.syntegra.com [129.179.4.124]) by sca-ea-mail-4.sun.com (8.13.6+Sun/8.12.9) with ESMTP id n9NHQtxY027241; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:27:00 +0000 (GMT) Received: from mmp13es.mmp.us.syntegra.com ([160.41.208.13] [160.41.208.13]) by relay14i.sun.com with ESMTP id BT-MMP-1656301; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:26:54 +0000 (Z) Received: from relay11i.sun.com (relay11i.sun.com [129.179.4.121]) by mmp13es.mmp.us.syntegra.com with ESMTP id BT-MMP-23946498; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:26:53 +0000 (Z) Received: from webaccess.egenera.com ([63.139.209.15] [63.139.209.15]) by relay1i.sun.com with ESMTP id BT-MMP-12625413; Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:26:53 +0000 (Z) Received: from webaccess.corp.egenera.com ([10.10.2.15]) by webaccess.egenera.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:26:53 -0400 Received: from [172.23.2.129] ([172.23.2.129]) by webaccess.corp.egenera.com over TLS secured channel with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.3959); Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:26:09 -0400 Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:25:49 -0400 From: Kyle McDonald Subject: Re: [2009/471] OpenSolaris Distribution Constructor - Inception AIs In-reply-to: <4AE1DF4A.90703@opensolaris.org> To: Shawn Walker Cc: Sarah Jelinek , PSARC-ext@sun.com, Karen Tung , Suhasini.Peddada@sun.com Message-id: <4AE1E71D.2090902@Egenera.COM> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-PMX-Version: 5.4.1.325704 X-Brightmail-Tracker: AAAAAA== References: <4ADF994D.40909@sun.com> <4AE06CDC.5080407@opensolaris.org> <4AE1DD5E.9020707@sun.com> <4AE1DF4A.90703@opensolaris.org> User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812) X-OriginalArrivalTime: 23 Oct 2009 17:26:09.0784 (UTC) FILETIME=[E9386F80:01CA5405] Status: RO Content-Length: 1713 Shawn Walker wrote: > Sarah Jelinek wrote: >> My biggest concerns about moving to JSON are: >> -No commenting. We absolutely need this for clarity. We do not have >> any tools to generate or modify our manifests, so the comments in our >> current manifests help users understand the contents. > > The original JSON specification supported comments, but in later > versions they removed this for the lame reason that "no-one used it" > as best I can tell. > >> -Unicode only support. >> >> I don't think that JSON is a viable option for us at this point. As a >> result, my recommendation is to continue using XML. > > So despite these disadvantages, there are a few things about JSON (and > this is why we ended up using it for pkg(5)) that are very attractive: > > * far more readable to mere mortals than XML, example: > > { > "publishers": ["opensolaris.org", "sun.com"], > "packages": ["foo", "bar", "baz"], > } > While not perfect, that is *much* better than XML. > Imagine the same in XML :) This also significantly can reduce file size. > > If the Unicode only aspect doesn't bother you, and you can come up > with a basic container format that allows comments, and none of the > other issues are a problem, then the advantages above may be more > important to you. > While it might increase memory usage a 'comment' attribute could probably just be added to the data structure, and the comments would be happily read in along with the data. They'd be written out again too I imagine which could have it's uses. -Kyle > It isn't an easy choice, and I won't try to persuade you one way or > another. If you're already using XML and everyone's happy, then go > for it :) > > Cheers, From Arieh.Markel@sun.com Sat Oct 24 01:30:36 2009 Received: from sunmail4.singapore.sun.com (sunmail4.Singapore.Sun.COM [129.158.71.19]) by sac.sfbay.sun.com (8.13.8+Sun/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n9O8UZup019092 for ; Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:30:35 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nwk-avmta-1.SFBay.Sun.COM (nwk-avmta-1.SFBay.Sun.COM [129.146.11.74]) by sunmail4.singapore.sun.com (8.13.4+Sun/8.13.3/ENSMAIL,v2.2) with ESMTP id n9O8UMAI003720 for <@sunmail2sca.sfbay.sun.com:PSARC-ext@sun.com>; Sat, 24 Oct 2009 16:30:33 +0800 (SGT) Received: from pmxchannel-daemon.nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM by nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) id <0KS000B01FMXWY00@nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:30:33 -0700 (PDT) Received: from brmea-mail-4.sun.com ([192.18.98.36]) by nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-3.04 (built Jul 15 2005)) with ESMTP id <0KS0004F0FMWVHD0@nwk-avmta-1.sfbay.Sun.COM> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:30:32 -0700 (PDT) Received: from fe-amer-09.sun.com ([192.18.109.79]) by brmea-mail-4.sun.com (8.13.6+Sun/8.12.9) with ESMTP id n9O8UWEx005408 for ; Sat, 24 Oct 2009 08:30:32 +0000 (GMT) Received: from conversion-daemon.mail-amer.sun.com by mail-amer.sun.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.04 64bit (built Jul 2 2009)) id <0KS000600FLYSO00@mail-amer.sun.com> for PSARC-ext@sun.com (ORCPT PSARC-ext@sun.com); Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:30:32 -0600 (MDT) Received: from [192.168.20.4] ([unknown] [79.181.102.166]) by mail-amer.sun.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 7u2-7.04 64bit (built Jul 2 2009)) with ESMTPSA id <0KS000LWBFMQSIB0@mail-amer.sun.com>; Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:30:32 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:30:25 +0200 From: Arieh Markel Subject: Re: [2009/471] OpenSolaris Distribution Constructor - Inception AIs In-reply-to: <4AE1E71D.2090902@Egenera.COM> Sender: Arieh.Markel@sun.com To: Kyle McDonald Cc: Shawn Walker , Sarah Jelinek , PSARC-ext@sun.com, Karen Tung , Suhasini.Peddada@sun.com Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1076) Content-type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT X-PMX-Version: 5.4.1.325704 References: <4ADF994D.40909@sun.com> <4AE06CDC.5080407@opensolaris.org> <4AE1DD5E.9020707@sun.com> <4AE1DF4A.90703@opensolaris.org> <4AE1E71D.2090902@Egenera.COM> Status: RO Content-Length: 2498 Our team (Ops Center) has been using JSON. Our experiences have been positive. We are mainly using is as a fast/small replacement for XML serialization. Not having comments has not been an issue so far. In general, my tendency is now to use JSON over XML whenever possible. Arieh On Oct 23, 2009, at 7:25 PM, Kyle McDonald wrote: > Shawn Walker wrote: >> Sarah Jelinek wrote: >>> My biggest concerns about moving to JSON are: >>> -No commenting. We absolutely need this for clarity. We do not >>> have any tools to generate or modify our manifests, so the >>> comments in our current manifests help users understand the >>> contents. >> >> The original JSON specification supported comments, but in later >> versions they removed this for the lame reason that "no-one used >> it" as best I can tell. >> >>> -Unicode only support. >>> >>> I don't think that JSON is a viable option for us at this point. >>> As a result, my recommendation is to continue using XML. >> >> So despite these disadvantages, there are a few things about JSON >> (and this is why we ended up using it for pkg(5)) that are very >> attractive: >> >> * far more readable to mere mortals than XML, example: >> >> { >> "publishers": ["opensolaris.org", "sun.com"], >> "packages": ["foo", "bar", "baz"], >> } >> > While not perfect, that is *much* better than XML. >> Imagine the same in XML :) This also significantly can reduce file >> size. >> >> If the Unicode only aspect doesn't bother you, and you can come up >> with a basic container format that allows comments, and none of the >> other issues are a problem, then the advantages above may be more >> important to you. >> > While it might increase memory usage a 'comment' attribute could > probably just be added to the data structure, and the comments would > be happily read in along with the data. They'd be written out again > too I imagine which could have it's uses. > > -Kyle > >> It isn't an easy choice, and I won't try to persuade you one way or >> another. If you're already using XML and everyone's happy, then go >> for it :) >> >> Cheers, > > Arieh Markel Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun OpsCenter - Virtualization Mgmt 9 Hamenofim St. 8th Floor. MS ETLV04 e-mail: arieh.markel@sun.COM Herzliya Pituach, Israel http://blogs.sun.com/arieh Phone: +972-9-971-1291 (70) x12291 Mobile: +972-54-238-2771