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On Thu, Aug 22, 2013 at 12:22 AM, Morgan Fainberg <m at metacloud.com> wrote:

> I've been doing some pondering on how Keystone handles the various
> pluggable systems with it's Manager / Driver architecture.
>
> Currently we implement the base driver class as follows:
>
> There is a driver object that has a number of reference functions defined
> on it, each of these functions typically raises NotImplemented() and has a
> docstring describing the expected behavior.  A simple example of this would
> be the Token Driver base class.  A complex example would be the Identity
> Driver base class.
>
> Example:
>
> class AbstractBaseClassTest(object):
>
>     def abstract_method1(args, kwargs):
>
>         raise NotImplemented()
>
>     def abstract_method2(args, kwargs):
>         ...
>
>
> This type of system is not inherently bad, nor flawed, but there are some
> cases when I've run into situations that raise a NotImplemented() error
> unexpectedly (usually in custom code I've had to write around a driver or
> replace a driver with and "internal to my company" implementation).
>
>
> For those not familiar with ABCMeta, abstract base classes, and the abc
> module:
>
> In a model that uses an abstract metaclass, the base class methods that
> need to be overridden are decorated with the "abstractmethod" decorator
> from the "abc" module.  This decorator when coupled with the ABCMeta
> metaclass, requires all abstract methods to be overridden by the class that
> inherits from the base class before the class can be instantiated.
>  Similarly there is an "abstractproperty" decorator for @property methods.
>
> The exception raised looks like:
>
> TypeError: Can't instantiate abstract class TestClass with abstract
> methods AbsTest1, AbsTest2
>
>
> The benefits are two fold.  First, this means that a new driver could not
> be implemented without overriding the expected methods (no raising
> "NotImplemented()" unintentionally) and it guarantees that even seldom-used
> expected functions would be defined on the driver implementations.  Second
> benefit is that these abstract methods can be called via the standard
> super() call, therefore if there is some base functionality that should be
> used (or legitimately you want to raise NotImplemented()), it is possible
> to have that defined on the parent class.
>
> Example abstract base class (with using six module instead of directly
> setting __metaclass__):
>
> class AbstractBaseClassTest(six.with_metaclass(abc.ABCMeta)):
>     @abc.abstractmethod
>     def abstract_method1(int_arg):
>         # we can do something here instead of raising
>         # NotImplemented()
>         return (int_arg + 1)
>
>
> On to the downsides, the compatibility between python2.7 and python3k
> (using the six library) is not the most pleasing thing to look at.  It
> requires defining the object that inherits from a method call
> six.with_metaclass.  I also have not looked at the performance implications
> of this, however, at first blush, it doesn't look like should be
> significant.  There are possibly other pitfalls that haven't come to mind
> as of yet.
>
> In short, the drivers should probably be actual abstract classes, since
> that is what they effectively are.  I've seen this functionality used in
> both Neutron and Ironic.  I could see it providing some benefits from it in
> Keystone.  I wanted to get the general feeling from the Mailing List on
> using abstracted base classes in lieu of our current implementation prior
> to proposing a Blueprint, etc.  I don't see this as a Havana implementation
> but possibly something to consider for Icehouse.
>
> I don't know if the benefits really would bring us a huge win in Keystone,
> but I think it would make understanding what should be implemented when
> subclassing for driver development (and similar pluggable systems) a bit
> more clear.
>

++ this is especially what I care about, and I think it has potential to be
just as useful/beneficial in keystone as in other projects (if not more so,
considering the crazy wide variety of use cases keystone sees).


>
> Cheers!
> --
> Morgan Fainberg
> Sr. Software Architect | Metacloud, Inc
> Email: m at metacloud.com
> IRC: morganfainberg
>
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>
>


-- 

-Dolph
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