Standalone Specifications

[Ron McLeod]

I'm wondering why some of the specifications such as Reactive Messaging and Context Propagation classified as Standalone, and not part in the core MicroProfile platform?

[Andy McCright]

That's a good question - and perhaps Emily can provide a more complete answer.

My take is that the vendors involved in the overall project (1) don't want to bloat the overall specification and (2) don't agree that those APIs/sub-specifications are essential enough to be part of the overall specification.  MP Context Propagation probably should be in the overall spec group - but instead it is transitioning to the Jakarta community to be part of Jakarta Concurrency.  I think this makes sense - and ideally, Jakarta Concurrency will be part of the overall MP spec.  So unless things change, I do foresee MP Context Propagation making it into the overall spec - just in a roundabout way.

As for Reactive Messaging (and the Reactive Stream Operators project that it depends on), I don't know why it's not part of the overall spec - but I suspect that the vendors involved see Reactive Messaging as somewhat niche and want to see more adoption before including it.  I think that that may also be the case for MP GraphQL and LRA.

If you'd like to voice your opinion on what should be included in the overall spec - or offer feedback on any of the specs, you can join the mailing list (Google Group) at: https://groups.google.com/g/microprofile

[Tim Moores]

In the case of GraphQL, I'd say that it has value way beyond what MP is aimed at. It would make sense to include it in JAX-RS, for example. which, like Andy's example of Context Propagation, is part of MP, and thus GraphQL might make it into MP by the backdoor. That's just speculation on my part, I don't see signs of it happening yet.

[Emily Jiang]

As for MicroProfile GraphQL, I have proposed to add it to the overall Platform release. Please see our MicroProfile programme plan 2022. It lists our plan regarding the standalone specifications. I think Reactive specs and LRA will remain as standalone specs for at least one more year as we want to see more vendors to support them.