TorqueBox 4 Update post

news/2014-07-01-torquebox-4-update.md

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+---
+title: 'TorqueBox 4 Update'
+author: Ben Browning
+layout: news
+timestamp: 2014-07-01t10:30:00.0-05:00
+tags: [ roadmap torqbox update ]
+---
+
+Lots of community users have been asking about TorqueBox 4 recently,
+so it's probably past time to talk about TorqueBox 4 a bit and give a
+roadmap update.
+
+For starters, the gem we've published as 'torqbox' and any references
+to that codename are being wrapped into TorqueBox 4.
+
+We have a couple of high-level goals with TorqueBox 4:
+
+* The various RubyGems we provide should be fully-functional
+  libraries, usable just like any other RubyGem. No application server
+  is required.
+
+* Applications using our gems can optionally be deployed to a stock
+  [WildFly][] or [JBoss EAP][] server.
+
+## Just RubyGems
+
+TorqueBox 4 will no longer have a large .zip download or the large
+torquebox-server gem. Instead, we'll have a handful of smaller gems
+(torquebox-web, torquebox-messaging, torquebox-scheduling, etc) that
+can be added to any JRuby application.
+
+Want to switch your JRuby application from another web server to
+TorqueBox 4? Just add 'torquebox-web' to your Gemfile, `bundle
+install`, and `rackup -s torquebox`.
+
+Want to use our messaging and scheduling but something else for your
+web requests? Just add 'torquebox-messaging' and
+'torquebox-scheduling' to your Gemfile, `bundle install`, and start
+using our APIs.
+
+We provide an all-in-one set of components tested with each other that
+gets pulled in with the 'torquebox' gem. But, you're also free to
+pick-and-choose individual components if you don't want the full
+stack.
+
+## Application servers
+
+If you need or want to use an application server, we'll still make it
+easy to run JRuby applications on top of [WildFly][] and [JBoss
+EAP][]. Applications written against our APIs will be able to go from
+running directly on the command-line to running inside the application
+server without changing the application or the application
+server. We'll take advantage of the application server to enable more
+advanced functionality when run inside of it, such as:
+
+* web session replication
+* load-balanced message distribution
+* highly-available singleton scheduled jobs
+* flexible cache replication
+* multiple polyglot application deployments
+
+## Following along
+
+If you'd like to follow along or contribute to the TorqueBox 4
+development, it currently takes places on the [torqbox][tb4git]
+branch. We'll be merging that to master before too long and will give
+a heads-up on the [developer mailing list][devlist] when that happens.
+
+If you'd like to give TorqueBox 4 a try, for now you'll need to build
+from source on that branch. The [README.md][readme] has instructions
+on doing so.
+
+Once we get some incremental builds of TorqueBox 4 and its
+documentation published somewhere, we'll do another blog post that
+shows how to use those incremental builds.
+
+
+## Roadmap
+
+### TorqueBox 4.0 by mid-to-late 2014
+
+We'll be putting out some 4.0 alpha / beta releases soon and hope to
+get 4.0 out by the middle of September. A lot of things will not be
+backwards compatible with TorqueBox 3.
+
+At a minimum this will contain web, scheduling, messaging, and caching
+APIs. Each API may not exactly duplicate the features we have today in
+TorqueBox 3, but we'll add features where appropriate with each new
+minor release.
+
+### TorqueBox 4.1 by early 2015
+
+The main focus of 4.1 will be easing the transition from TorqueBox
+3. This means writing an in-depth migration guide as well as deciding
+what, if any, APIs we want to provide a backwards-compatibility layer
+for. Early adopters will be encouraged to migrate to TorqueBox 4.0 and
+provide feedback so we can make the migration as smooth as possible
+for everyone else in TorqueBox 4.1.
+
+We'll also save time to add in some features missing from 4.0 that
+existed in 3.1, based on community feedback.
+
+### TorqueBox 3 in maintenance mode
+
+We'll continue to fix bugs in TorqueBox 3 and put out releases
+as-needed, but don't expect any new features there. The tentative plan
+is to stop fixing bugs in TorqueBox 3 approximately one year after we
+release TorqueBox 4. 
+
+## More to come
+
+This was just a high-level overview of where TorqueBox 4 stands and
+what it will be. We'll be going into a lot more depth on various
+pieces in future posts.
+
+## Feedback welcome!
+
+We welcome and encourage feedback from our potential users, current
+users, and especially our production users. Please [get in
+touch][community] if you have questions, concerns, or comments about
+TorqueBox 4.
+
+
+[wildfly]: http://wildfly.org
+[jboss eap]: https://www.jboss.org/products/eap
+[tb4git]: https://github.com/torquebox/torquebox/tree/torqbox
+[devlist]: /community/mailing_lists/
+[readme]: https://github.com/torquebox/torquebox/blob/torqbox/README.md
+[community]: /community/