Replace static codegen'd factory classes with generic factories about orleans

[sergeybykov]

@ReubenBond - Do you mean to add GrainFactory.CreateObjectReference()?

[ReubenBond]

I was thinking of "ObserverFactory" or "ClientFactory" but yes, pretty much.

-----Original Message-----
From: "Sergey Bykov" [email protected]
Sent: ‎02/‎02/‎2015 06:40
To: "dotnet/orleans" [email protected]
Cc: "Reuben Bond" [email protected]
Subject: Re: [orleans] Replace static codegen'd factory classes with genericfactories (#59)

@ReubenBond - Do you mean to add GrainFactory.CreateObjectReference()?
—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.=

[sergeybykov]

My personal preference would be to stick to one static factory class, GrainFactory, for better discoverability.

[ReubenBond]

The proposal is to add

public static Task<TGrainObserverInterface> GrainFactory.CreateObjectReference<TGrainObserverInterface>(TGrainObserverInterFace obj);

As well as the matching DeleteObjectReference method.

LGTYou?

[ReubenBond]

What should the behavior be when a user calls GrainFactory.CreateObjectReference(observer) where observer is a concrete type (i.e, not an interface).

Currently it will crash at runtime when it is unable to find the concrete type's factory.

I think the best approach is to force the user to specify the interface in the type parameters, which equates to changing the signature to:

CreateObjectReference<TGrainObserverInterface>(IGrainObserver obj)
    : where TGrainObserverInterface : IGrainObserver

Usage then becomes:

var obj = await GrainFactory.CreateObjectReference<ISimpleGrainObserver>(observer);

I'm performing a runtime check that the argument matches the type parameter:

if (!interfaceType.IsInstanceOfType(obj))
{
    throw new ArgumentException(
        string.Format("The provided object must implement '{0}'.", interfaceType.FullName),
        "obj");
}

What do you think?

[jkonecki]

Do you really need to perform the check at runtime? The compiler won't
allow passing of the object that violates generic parameter restrictions...

On Sun, 1 Feb 2015 22:41 Reuben Bond [email protected] wrote:

What should the behavior be when a user calls
GrainFactory.CreateObjectReference(observer) where observer is a concrete
type (i.e, not an interface).

Currently it will crash at runtime when it is unable to find the concrete
type's factory.

I think the best approach is to force the user to specify the interface in
the type parameters, which equates to changing the signature to:

CreateObjectReference(IGrainObserver obj)
: where TGrainObserverInterface : IGrainObserver

Usage then becomes:

var obj = await GrainFactory.CreateObjectReference(observer);

I'm performing a runtime check that the argument matches the type
parameter:

if (!obj.GetType().IsAssignableFrom(interfaceType))
{
throw new ArgumentException(
string.Format("The provided object must implement '{0}'.", interfaceType.FullName),
"obj");
}

What do you think?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#59 (comment).

[ReubenBond]

I can't have generic parameter restrictions to say T is an interface, though. The compiler will infer the most specific type possible, which will be the concrete type.

To make it less error prone, I changed the type in the parameter list to IGrainObserver rather than TGrainObserverInterface - that forces the consumer to specify the interface type (which I can only check at runtime).

Maybe I'm missing something, though. Do you have a suggestion for how I can improve this?

[veikkoeeva]

Just an idea, would IsAssignableFrom be an option here?

• http://www.hanselman.com/blog/DoesATypeImplementAnInterface.aspx
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12160460/when-is-obj-gettype-isinstanceoftypetypeofmyclass-true

[sergeybykov]

The compile will already enforce
where TGrainObserverInterface : IGrainObserver

At run time, don't we just need to check that it's an interface via
obj.GetType().IsInterface
?

[ReubenBond]

We do a couple of sanity checks:

1. Is TGrainObserverInterface an interface: the compiler enforces that it implements IGrainObserver as you said, @sergeybykov.
2. Is obj an instance of TGrainObserverInterface: the compiler only check that it implements IGrainObserver, but not its relationship to TGrainObserverInterface.

The type system cannot infer the interface from the concrete type, so the user must explicitly provide it. We cannot specify a relationship between obj and TGrainObserverInterface while forcing the user to specify TGrainObserverInterface unless we also force them to explicitly specify the type of obj.

i.e:

// Bad: TInterface is concrete type
Task<TInterface> CreateObjectReference<TInterface>(TInterface obj) where TInterface : IGrainObserver

// Correct, but the user has to specify both types explicitly
Task<TInterface> CreateObjectReference<TInterface,TConcrete>(TConcrete obj) where TInterface : IGrainObserver where TConcrete : TInterface

// Only runtime checks can verify relationship between `obj` and TInterface
Task<TInterface> CreateObjectReference<TInterface>(IGrainObserver obj) where TInterface : IGrainObserver