is switchyard really a good choice?

[imen]

Hello,

I am starting to develop using switchyard.

actually for the time being i'm just trying to test it.

i'm getting weired errors....

for exactly the same steps while creating, "coding"... it worked and now it doesn't...

so i'm starting to think that maybe switchyard isn't stable yet.

it's really important for me to have your feedbacks because i don't have much time for testing and chosing the appropriate tools to work with.

i have an urgent project to develop.

so please, can you tell me if it's really "safe" to use switchyard?

thank you

[synclpz]

My opinion that it is not still functional or "easy to develop" enough, but main developers do their most to get it working well and are very responsive to questions.

So, if you feel comfortable reading source instead of docs, you may give SY a try ;-)

[kcbabo]

With the release of SY 1.0.0.Final this week, public APIs will be backward compatible so you should not run into issues with compilation or configuration compatibility.  If you can be a bit more specific about what is breaking, then folks on the forum can help.

[kcbabo]

Viktor : ease-of-use is very important to us, so if there are specific areas where you think we can improve please let us know.

[imen]

Actually i don't know myself what's going wrong.

First of all i tried to test the simple demo of the episode 6 (the video tutorial: https://community.jboss.org/wiki/SwitchYardVideoSeries).

it's composed of only one bean exposing a service called by a soap client.

it worked.

then i tried to add an other bean myself. i guess i did something wrong. but that's not really the problem.

the problem is that when i tried to run the initial project (the one exactly like the demo) it didn't work and i've got an error saying the service wasn't found by the soapUI.

So, and after i struggled for a while, i deleted the project, and started a new one, doing exactly like the video (same as the first time).

and it didn't work....

now i don't really remember all the errors i've got (i should have noted them, sorry)

but then, i decided to run the bean-server quickstart and i've got the errors i listed in my previous post "

Can't Run "bean-service quick start" under JBDS

"(https://community.jboss.org/message/828105#828105)

well, after all this, i decided to uninstall my JBDS an install it again... because it wasn't normal to get different errors each time i run the same project.

this time and with exactly the same configuration, when i tried to start a new project, it gave me the following error:

error creating project: org/eclipse/../jpa..

so, because i couldn't even create a new switchyard project, i uninstalled JBDS AGAIN and now i'm reinstalling it...

hope i don't get a new weired error.

and i'm saying weired because whenever i search for the error i get on the internet i don't find anything lik it...

i hope my post wasn't too long to read, it's just that i wanted to give you as much details as i can so you can help me.

thank you for your time

[imen]

after re-installing carefully everything and making sure i didn't miss a step or a configuration, i still can't create a new switchyard project and here is a screenshot of the error i get:

i think that maybe i should give up.

can anyone suggest me another SOA framework, please?

i'm kind of desperate...

[kcbabo]

There are six steps here to install SwitchYard Tooling on top of JBDS for SwitchYard 0.8.0.Final:

https://docs.jboss.org/author/display/SWITCHYARD08/Installation+Guide#InstallationGuide-InstallingEclipseTooling

It's been tested.  It works. Are the instructions above what you are using to install?  I assume you're selecting 0.8.0.Final as the version of the runtime which creating the project?

[synclpz]

First of all, your work is great. But it's hard to study SY if you are not "into" it as well as you, developers, are. It may look very easy and understandable for you, but for people who try it for the first time it is challenging :-)

For "ease-of-use" I mean:

1) Tested user-docs with some case-studies, not just quickstarts

2) Development docs: how to extend functionalities, it should be available as a review of internal architecture (I mean Messages, Contexts, Exchanges, Beans, References, Bindings, etc) how they interact with each other. At the moment everything available is source code + dev forum posts

3) Eclipse tooling being stable enough to cope with "dumb" user mistakes. Now I'm evaluating 1.0.0.Final tooling, can't say anything wrong with it at the moment.

4) Improve clustering and failover capabilities

[imen]

Actually i just read the official installation manual (https://access.redhat.com/site/documentation/JBoss_Enterprise_SOA_Platform/?locale=en-US).

i didn't check the eclipse tooling installation because i thought that maybe installing switchyard on eclipse and on JBDS isn't the same (even if JBDS is an eclipse based IDE, it's still a different version...)

well i'm trying the installation procedure you recommanded. hope it works, because i really like switchyard (the theory of it so far)

thank you for your advices

[imen]

so i re-installed a brand new JBDS (so that i can be sure there wan't be any conflicts).

and i'm stucked in the first step of the installation:

step: Download a release version of the offline update site ZIP (switchyard-site-assembly) from the SwitchYard Downloads page.

As an alternative, you may install directly from the update site here:  http://download.jboss.org/jbosstools/updates/stable/juno/soa-tooling/switchyard/0.8.0.Final

1- i've got the following error when i try to install from the update link:

Cannot complete the install because one or more required items could not be found.

  Software being installed: SwitchYard 0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI (org.switchyard.tools.feature.feature.group 0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI)

  Missing requirement: SwitchYard 0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI (org.switchyard.tools.feature.feature.group 0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI) requires 'org.eclipse.emf.compare.feature.group [1.2.0,2.0.0)' but it could not be found

2- i downloaded the switchyard-as7-0.8.0.Final.zip release from http://www.jboss.org/switchyard/downloads but it's not a jar (can't install it), it's a zipped directory, when i unzipped it it seems that it's just jboss as7 server.

it only contains the following directories:

now what?

[imen]

i installed EMF compare for juno, then i got the following error when trying to install switchyard:

Cannot complete the install because one or more required items could not be found.

  Software being installed: SwitchYard BPM Support 0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI (org.switchyard.tools.bpmn2.feature.feature.group 0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI)

  Missing requirement: SwitchYard BPM Support 0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI (org.switchyard.tools.bpmn2.feature.feature.group 0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI) requires 'org.eclipse.bpmn2.modeler.feature.feature.group [0.2.4,0.3.0)' but it could not be found

when i deselect

SwitchYard BPM Support

0.8.0.v20130322-2030-H280-CI

there are no errors left, but then it means Switchyard BPM support won't be installed....

i guess i'll have to install bpmn2 modeler and try again

Keith Babo: i'm telleing you all this so you can fix those problems for the future

[kcbabo]

I appreciate your effort here, but these aren't problems we need to fix. These are problems that you are creating for yourself by not following the directions.  From the install guide:

• Download the update site zip.  It has the name in parentheses : switchyard-site-assembly.  You have downloaded the runtime distribution based on what you posted above.

• Add the update sites for Juno and the BPMN 2 modeler.  If you did this, you wouldn't have to install EMF compare and the BPMN 2 modeler separately.

• After the update sites are added, use the update site zip you downloaded in step 1 to install SwitchYard tooling.  It will pull in all dependencies.

Even though I know this works, I went ahead and installed a fresh copy of JBDS and tested the install steps again.  Everything worked. 

[imen]

thank you very much for your time i am really grateful that you've payed all this attention to my remarks.

actually i didn't read the hole installation guide then applyed it, i read and executed the steps in the order they were written.

and when i read:

As an alternative, you may install directly from the update site here:  http://download.jboss.org/jbosstools/updates/stable/juno/soa-tooling/switchyard/0.8.0.Final

,i simply did that... maybe it's just me but i'm giving you a beginner's point of you, that was a little bit confusing, because once i've got the errors i mentionned i didn't keep on reading the instalation guide (if i did i could have seen "Add the update sites for Juno and the BPMN 2 modeler", but once you have an error, first thing you do is try to fix it before proceding with the next step right?

you are absolutely right about (switchyard-site-assembly) but i didn't pay atteention to it because in the video tutorial it is said that the switchyard-as7-0.8.0.Final.zip includes all the others. and i took that tutorial for an official one and thought it would be a good idea to download the (full) version, if i may say.

So the problem here wasn't the installation procedure itself but the installation guide.

That's why i'm acknowloging what Viktor Alexandrov said earlier, switchyard isn't easy to use. and not because it is complicated but because there isn't enough documentation, or the documentation is not clear enough for beginners or let's say for dummys (i like tutorials for dummys )

Well, now that my installation is complete, can i bother you with another beginner's problem please?

it's a problem that you already resolved for somebody else but i didn't get the solution.

here the link to the discussion i am referring to, i've posted myself a comment to explain my problem:

Not able to hit the end point of my service

Thank you again for your time