status on colony

[Brandon]

Hey everyone, I am really liking the idea of using colony for a
project I am working on. I am just kind of wondering about the status.
I know that it says colony is in a alpha stage but you say there is
already a website running on it in another message...so I am wondering
if I should try it out yet or not.

How close is it to an actual 1.0 release? How stable is the API?

Thanks,

-Brandon

[Luís Martinho]

Hi Brandon,

It's probably going to be a while until an actual 1.0 release.

The plugin system itself is pretty stable by now. But there are some important plugins, that give Colony a lot of its value, that will probably change a bit before we can say we're at 1.0.

There are some successful production deployments already, but they're all directly supported by the core team, so they're supposed to work.

So... if you want to get your hands dirty, want to do some experimenting, and can handle some API fluctuation from time to time, I would say: go for it.

If you're looking for a clean, off-the-shelf, "just works" kind of experience, I would say: wait a little longer.

It's getting easier every day. And we've been covering a lot of ground regarding configuration and deployment management.

Was this helpful? Want to share the kind of project you had in mind?

Regards,

Luis.

--

Luís Martinho

http://www.hive.pt

lmar...@hive.pt

+351 93 405 72 40

Skype: lmartinho_hive

[Brandon Pedersen]

2011/8/19 Luís Martinho <lmar...@hive.pt>:

> Hi Brandon,
> It's probably going to be a while until an actual 1.0 release.
> The plugin system itself is pretty stable by now. But there are some
> important plugins, that give Colony a lot of its value, that will probably
> change a bit before we can say we're at 1.0.

That is good to know. For my situation I don't think I will use much
of the built-in plugins. I really just need a plugin system that will
allow me to update and restart certain pieces without restarting the
whole application. I will mostly be using a lot of what is covered
here http://getcolony.com/docs/colony/documentation_colony_specification.html
with the plugin lifecycle, capability injection, dependency injection,
and event system. Are those pieces "pretty stable"?

> There are some successful production deployments already, but they're all
> directly supported by the core team, so they're supposed to work.
> So... if you want to get your hands dirty, want to do some experimenting,
> and can handle some API fluctuation from time to time, I would say: go for
> it.

Yeah, I thought I would give it a shot to see if it would work...just
downloaded it last night but didn't get too far since it was 1 in the
morning :) I will try out some more later today

> If you're looking for a clean, off-the-shelf, "just works" kind of
> experience, I would say: wait a little longer.
> It's getting easier every day. And we've been covering a lot of ground
> regarding configuration and deployment management.
> Was this helpful? Want to share the kind of project you had in mind?

My project is going to be some time sensitive monitoring stuff where
we will have little monitoring components that may be changed or added
to. Each new thing (or maybe a small set of new things) that is going
to be monitored will probably be its own plugin and I would like to
not disrupt the others when new things are added or changed. I will
not be using any of the web framework pieces at all (the http, mvc,
search, and whatever else). Any comments knowing this is what I will
be doing? I was also looking at using the zope component architecture
but that doesn't have a very nice way to reload components as far as I
have seen.

I guess another question I have would be if I did start using colony,
would it be possible to upgrade it as you make changes while the
system is running? Or how hard would it be to upgrade?

Thanks,

-Brandon

[Luís Martinho]

Hey,

Check the answers below.

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 4:39 PM, Brandon Pedersen <bpe...@gmail.com> wrote:

2011/8/19 Luís Martinho <lmar...@hive.pt>:

> Hi Brandon,
> It's probably going to be a while until an actual 1.0 release.
> The plugin system itself is pretty stable by now. But there are some
> important plugins, that give Colony a lot of its value, that will probably
> change a bit before we can say we're at 1.0.

That is good to know. For my situation I don't think I will use much
of the built-in plugins. I really just need a plugin system that will
allow me to update and restart certain pieces without restarting the
whole application. I will mostly be using a lot of what is covered
here http://getcolony.com/docs/colony/documentation_colony_specification.html
with the plugin lifecycle, capability injection, dependency injection,
and event system. Are those pieces "pretty stable"?

Yup, that's pretty much the core itself.

I believe that hasn't been subject to any serious change in about 6 months.

Everything else is built on top of it, and relies on it not changing that often.

 

> There are some successful production deployments already, but they're all
> directly supported by the core team, so they're supposed to work.
> So... if you want to get your hands dirty, want to do some experimenting,
> and can handle some API fluctuation from time to time, I would say: go for
> it.

Yeah, I thought I would give it a shot to see if it would work...just
downloaded it last night but didn't get too far since it was 1 in the
morning :) I will try out some more later today

Sure. You can use the list if you run into trouble.

 

> If you're looking for a clean, off-the-shelf, "just works" kind of
> experience, I would say: wait a little longer.
> It's getting easier every day. And we've been covering a lot of ground
> regarding configuration and deployment management.
> Was this helpful? Want to share the kind of project you had in mind?

My project is going to be some time sensitive monitoring stuff where
we will have little monitoring components that may be changed or added
to. Each new thing (or maybe a small set of new things) that is going
to be monitored will probably be its own plugin and I would like to
not disrupt the others when new things are added or changed. I will
not be using any of the web framework pieces at all (the http, mvc,
search, and whatever else). Any comments knowing this is what I will
be doing? I was also looking at using the zope component architecture
but that doesn't have a very nice way to reload components as far as I
have seen.

Seems like a pretty nice fit for Colony, especially the part of ensuring other components remain operating while one component is replaced or added.

I don't know a lot about the Zope component architecture, but maybe someone else on the list does...

 

I guess another question I have would be if I did start using colony,
would it be possible to upgrade it as you make changes while the
system is running? Or how hard would it be to upgrade?

We're currently finishing the update process for the plugin system itself.

We're able to upgrade a full Colony instance, that includes all the plugins AND the plugin manager (core) code itself.

Upgrading the core, as you would expect, involves some minimal downtime but we're working on setting up some sort of replica to keep operating while we upgrade the master.

 

Thanks,

-Brandon

Cheers,

Luis

[Brandon Pedersen]

Thanks for the info. I am starting to play with it now and might have
some questions...so watch out :) This just feels like the right fit
for my application and hope it works out.

Thanks,

-Brandon

2011/8/19 Luís Martinho <lmar...@hive.pt>: