> >> in sca-contribution.xml files within a Contribution. If an artifact > >> is deployed which has dependencies
> >> on other artifacts, then those dependent artifacts are also deployed.
> >> When the SCA runtime has one or more deployable artifacts, the > >> runtime attempts to put those artifacts
> >> and any artifacts they depend on into the Running state. This can > >> fail due to errors in one or more of the artifacts
> >> or the process can be delayed until all dependencies are available.
> >> 11.3.1
> >> Checking for errors in artifacts MUST NOT be done for artifacts in > >> the Installed state (ie where the artifacts are
> >> simply part of installed contributions] {ASM120xx]
> > This seems over-restrictive. For example, what about malformed > > artifacts
> > such as .composite files with XML syntax errors? It might be useful > > to
> > inform the user about such problems when the artifacts are > > installed, but
> > the proposed rule would apparently prohibit an SCA runtime from even
> > discovering these problems at installation time. I think a better > > rule
> > would be to allow such errors to be detected as long as this does not
> > prevent any artifacts from being deployed. For example: Any errors in
> > artifacts in the Installed state (i.e., where the artifacts are part > > of
> > installed contributions and have not been deployed) MUST NOT prevent > > the
> > SCA runtime from deploying artifacts.
> >
>
> I agree with the general statement that runtimes should be allowed to > detect syntactic errors upfront since that is what users would expect > and want (i.e. contributions should not be installed if they contain > invalid artifacts). However, I don't follow the part about not > preventing artifacts from being deployed. Is it the case that an error > in some random contribution artifact A, does not prevent a composite C > in the same contribution from being deployed? Many users would want to > prevent that scenario. For example, I would expect most users would > only want "clean" contributions in a production environment.
>
I think (I hope) what Simon means is that it's ok for a runtime to
detect errors at install time (if possible and reasonable) as long as
it's also possible to go ahead and deploy those artifacts even when
the deployment engine knows there are errors in the artifacts.
In Jim's scenario above, if A has a known error but C does not have a known error, I think compliant runtimes should be allowed to deploy C if requested. I am leaning towards going further and saying that compliant runtimes should be required to deploy C if requested.
I think requiring runtimes to deploy artifacts from contributions that contain known errors would be very a bad thing to do. Here's why:
1. Most users have stringent regulation over production environments and do not permit application artifacts containing detectable errors to be deployed. In most cases I have seen, this also goes for development environments. For example, good development environments have mechanisms in place to verify artifacts such as integration tests that fail a build if an error is detected. This avoids accumulating broken artifacts and cruft in source repositories. Requiring a compliant runtime to make a contribution containing detectable errors available in a domain would negate being able to lock down a production or development environment in this way.
2. The random artifact A could be exported by the contribution. It is possible for a composite contained in another contribution to be deployed at some later date that references artifact A. The error in A will surface at that later point. I think most people would prefer the error to be raised at the time the contribution containing A was "installed" in the domain.
3. It's very difficult to calculate with absolute certainty that contribution C does not indirectly reference A, particularly if A can be located dynamically in code. Providing fail-fast behavior avoids runtime errors from surfacing where they can cause more damage.
I do agree compliant runtimes should be allowed to deploy contributions containing invalid artifacts. However, they should not be required to do so.
A more interesting question is if another composite B has a known
error, should compliant runtimes be required or allowed to deploy B
if requested? I think this depends on the kind of error. Some
errors might be severe enough to prevent the deployment from
succeeding. Some errors might be less severe so that it would be
possible to allow deployment, even though some of the resulting
components would not be executable. The SCA specs should define
which errors fall into which of these categories.
How can a runtime be certain an error in B will not cause a serious problem if B is deployed? Can you provide examples of such errors?
Jim
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