RDF-ISSUE-125 Futures vs. callbacks (was: Re: Request for JSON-LD API review)

OK.. so Manu was a bit faster. Instead of sending my (now probably redundant) reply, I've created an issue to track this discussion.

Futures vs. callbacks is now tracked as RDF-ISSUE-125. So please include that string in the subject so that the issue tracker picks up the mails:

http://www.w3.org/2011/rdf-wg/track/issues/125


Cheers,
Markus


--
Markus Lanthaler
@markuslanthaler





> -----Original Message-----
> From: Manu Sporny [mailto:msporny@digitalbazaar.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2013 4:51 PM
> To: Tab Atkins Jr.
> Cc: Markus Lanthaler; public-script-coord@w3.org; public-rdf-
> comments@w3.org; Boris Zbarsky; Linked JSON
> Subject: ISSUE-124: Futures / Order of parameters (was: Re: Request for
> JSON-LD API review)
> 
> On 04/16/2013 07:55 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> >> We also considered Futures but decided that introducing a normative
> >> dependency to the DOM spec is not acceptable at this stage.
> 
> This was one of the reasons, but wasn't the main reason. The main
> reason
> was that it wasn't clear what problem was being solved by replacing the
> node.js-style callbacks in the JSON-LD API with futures. More on this
> below.
> 
> > Worrying about dependencies falls into the "technical purity" bucket,
> > and your ladder of constituencies is:
> >
> > Technical Purity < Implementors < Authors < Users
> 
> Yes, agreed.
> 
> > If there is a correct way to do things, but it would introduce a new
> > dependency, your job is to do the correct thing and then figure out
> > how to route around the bureaucracy.  Anything else is abandoning
> your
> > responsibility toward all the other constituencies.
> 
> Also agreed. So, let's focus on the correct way to do things in this
> instance and forget about the DOM4-dependency.
> 
> > In this case, your API is a textbook example of Futures.  You have an
> > async call which returns a single value, or an error.  You can't get
> > much more perfect than that.
> 
> For those that aren't tracking the discussion, we had a discussion in
> the #whatwg channel yesterday about the JSON-LD API and Futures:
> 
> http://krijnhoetmer.nl/irc-logs/whatwg/20130417#l-198
> 
> I asked Tab to write a blog post about DOM4 Futures just to make sure
> that we weren't missing anything important. Tab kindly spent the time
> and put together a really good blog post on futures:
> 
> http://www.xanthir.com/b4PY0
> 
> The blog post is a good read for what is planned for Futures in DOM4. I
> do have follow-up questions on the blog post, which I'll go into below.
> But before that, some background.
> 
> The JSON-LD API uses node.js-style callbacks. We made this technical
> decision because it was compatible with both server-side and client-
> side
> code in JavaScript. It was also compatible with asynchronous-style
> programming in Ruby and Python.
> 
> It's also important to note that node.js started out with futures as a
> design paradigm and moved away from that design for a number of very
> good reasons:
> 
> http://www.futurealoof.com/posts/broken-promises.html
> 
> Tab's post doesn't address the fundamental problems with DOM4 Futures:
> 
> 1) The spec isn't done. DOM4 Futures are too experimental for
>    production at this point.
> 2) They're not supported in many languages in the same way as DOM4,
>    so anyone wanting to implement the JSON-LD API would have to
>    implement DOM4 Futures.
> 3) Futures aren't as popular yet as callback management. Just taking
>    the two most popular libraries for flow management in node.js
>    (async and q). Callback management (async) has 1,000 libraries that
>    depend on it, futures (q) has around 258.
> 4) Mixing callback management with Futures leads to a great deal of
>    pain for developers. It requires each software library to have
>    two flow-control versions. One for callback management and one for
>    futures.
> 
> The benefits of using futures instead of callback management seem to
> boil down to personal preference more than a clear technical advantage
> of one over the other. There are benefits to using futures over
> callback
> management, there are also benefits for callback management over
> futures.
> 
> Now on to the specifics of Tab's blog post:
> 
> Reason 1: Chaining
> ------------------
> 
> You can chain just as easily using the async module:
> 
> https://github.com/caolan/async/blob/master/README.md
> 
> It works just as well in the browser:
> 
> https://github.com/caolan/async/blob/master/README.md#in-the-browser
> 
> Reason 2: More Chaining (Deep nesting)
> --------------------------------------
> 
> Async, and many of the other callback management libraries, prevent
> deep
> nesting:
> 
> https://github.com/caolan/async/blob/master/README.md#quick-examples
> 
> Reason 3: Linear callback growth
> --------------------------------
> 
> This is annoying to deal with, although there aren't many cases that
> we've found in practice where this leads to deep nesting. I'd say that
> this is a clear win for futures, but it might be solving a problem that
> many developers don't have today.
> 
> Reason 4: Errors are easy to deal with
> --------------------------------------
> 
> This is also a solved problem in many of the callback management
> libraries. There is one error function at the end, if any of the
> functions called in a series or in parallel throw an error, all
> subsequent calls are canceled and the error callback is called instead:
> 
> https://github.com/caolan/async/blob/master/README.md#seriestasks-
> callback
> 
> Reason 5: Future combinators
> ----------------------------
> 
> There are 3 proposed combinators for the DOM4 Futures spec. Async has
> over 10 combinators defined (depending on what your definition for a
> 'combinator' is):
> 
> https://github.com/caolan/async/blob/master/README.md#control-flow
> 
> 15 combinators exist because the 3 that DOM4 Futures defines are not
> enough to cover the use cases that developers have found in the wild.
> 
> Conclusion
> ----------
> 
> I remain unconvinced that shifting the current JSON-LD API over to a
> DOM4 Future's approach is the way to go. I do accept that this may be
> the wrong decision in the long term if everyone decides to move over to
> futures. In an attempt to mitigate the risk, perhaps we should also
> define a JSON-LD Futures API in another spec? Maybe we should rename
> the
> current API to JSON-LD Callback API?
> 
> Tab, Boris, did I misunderstand anything above? Did I miss a key
> concept
> with Futures that are not covered already by async (or many of the
> other
> callback management libraries)?
> 
> -- manu
> 
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: Meritora - Web payments commercial launch
> http://blog.meritora.com/launch/

Received on Wednesday, 17 April 2013 15:06:00 UTC