The Hibernate Search team is very happy to release Hibernate Search 4. This has been a long and huge effort from our side and we can't wait for you to get your hands on it. This release is coming right in sync with Hibernate Core 4 Final. We made sure both work perfectly together.

There are too many new features to list them all. Let me give you the executive summary:

• support for Hibernate Core 4
• support for source of data/events other than Hibernate Core (which is now an optional dependency)
• clearer split between APIs, SPIs and implementation classes
• better log and error reporting
• better underlying architecture - index managers allow now for one backend per index and even non directory based indexes
• near real time search
• optimized and cross-version compatible wire format for communications between master and slaves
• performance improvements (more analyzer parallelization, fine-grained masters etc)
• support for projections on custom bridges fields
• support for @IndexedEmbedded on collections of basic types
• easier way to work on documentation translation

Ground work

We have done a lot of ground work. Hibernate Search 4 targets Hibernate Core 4 and uses its nice integrator concept. Our code is now properly split into APIs, SPIs and implementation classes. If you import a class contained in a impl package, you know that this code is not guaranteed to work between micro versions.

To help our work in Infinispan, Hibernate Search is now truely independent of Hibernate Core - it's an optional dependency. We have also improved error messages and logs which now come with a unique identifier like HSEARCH00024. The idea is to support internationalization and let you easily Google for an error and find posts describing the same problem.

Architecture and indexing work

We have reworked our underlying architecture to give you more flexibility and prepare for our work in Hibernate OGM. Each index now has its own backend configuration (using JMS or direct Lucene directories, syn/async etc). This also helps us index things more efficiently and in parallel. Another nice consequence is that you technically can have one master per index (in the master/slaves model) instead of one master for all indexed. This will help scalability in high pressure scenarios.

We now also support non-directory based index managers which enabled us to implement near real time search (sometimes called NRT search). Near real time search comes with a few gotchas, but can be very useful. Read more about near real time search.

To help support clusters of heterogeneous versions, we have rewritten the wire protocol used to communicate between slaves and masters. We use Avro as the serialization library which gives us the required abstraction. A nice side effect is a much smaller payload and speed improvements over the old java serialization approach.

Others

We have worked on many other things. Check out the release notes in the distribution for the full list of changes. Oh and of course it works in JBoss AS 7.

Another one I'd like to mention is the much easier process to translate the documentation to foreign languages. It's all on the web :) If you feel like translating the doc, read more about the translation process.

Get the release

Make sure to read the migration guide if you convert an existing application. And go download Hibernate Search 4.

Many thanks to all the contributors that made this release possible whether it be via pull requests, bug reports or feedback on the forum.

Enjoy and happy holidays to everyone.

We have some exciting news on Ceylon, the new JVM based programming language Gavin has been discussing on this blog. We now have a website, a blog and opened up all our source code. Let's dive into some details.

A community website and a blog

We have just launched a dedicated website on everything related Ceylon. Whether you want to

• quickly know what Ceylon is about,
• want to explore it in more details,
• or even try some live coding,

this is the right place. It's filled with doc, faqs, how-to etc.

And of course, we have a dedicated blog for Ceylon. Make sure to register to the Ceylon feed.

Sources and IDE

The other big news is that we have opened up our source repositories. Everything is on GitHub. If you want to explore the source or try it out, this is the place.

Note that we are not satisfied enough to call it a milestone 1 which should come in the next few weeks (check our roadmap). We essentially need to nail down more bugs and improve the integration between modules. But that should be good enough for adventurous souls.

To let you play more easily, we have also opened up the Ceylon IDE based on Eclipse. This is really cutting edge, you have been warned. Now go for it ;)

Feedback

Probably the most important reason for releasing the source code and the website is that Ceylon is community driven. We want your feedback on design decisions we made or are making. One place to look for is on our issue tracker, any issue marked request for feedback or directly request them.

Now is a great time to get involved. And make sure to follow our blog.

We are continuing our quest for Hibernate Search 4.0. No breaking news for this release, we are quietly moving to the candidate release phase. As Sanne, said the big news is that there are no big news ;)

We have fixed a bunch of issues and expanded our test coverage. Thanks to Davide's work, we now have a nice Arquillian test harness making sure Hibernate Search runs fine on JBoss AS 7. We also fired up our Windows VMs and added Windows to our Jenkins tests to make sure Hibernate Search runs without issues there. Hint: playing with files on Windows is hell.

We also have native support for UUIDs thanks to Gregory Beachy.

What's in Hibernate Search 4.0

Many things:

• near real time search
• new per-index backend architecture
• Hibernate Core 4 support
• new portable and efficient binary format between nodes
• Hibernate Core is now an optional dependency

Read more in our previous blog posts.

Get the release

Check out the release and as usual, make sure you read the Migration guide when you upgrade from a previous version.

Continuing our journey towards Hibernate Search 4, we decided to add a Beta2 to the schedule.

Hibernate Core is no more a required dependency

The main feature is the full abstraction of Hibernate Search from Hibernate Core. This is especially good news for Infinispan Query users who won't have to drag Hibernate Core and its dependencies anymore. Once can write an integration between Hibernate Search and another datastore: all the contracts have been fleshed out.

If we have done our job right, you will have nothing to change in your Maven dependency declaration while migrating to this version. hibernate-search is still the main artifact to include, but it is now just a shell depending on the new hibernate-search-orm module.

We also have upgraded to Lucene 3.4 which contains performance improvements and important bug fixes.

Translate the documentation

On a completely different note we moved the Hibernate Search documentation to Zanata which is a web-based system for translators to translate documentation using a web-browser. So far it was quite hard for translators to contribute. They had to checkout the source code, install the publican toolchain and run multiple maven commands. With Zanata a translator can just contribute translations without installing anything. All you have to do is to join the JBoss community of translators by following the steps described in the Zanata Getting Started Guide and start translating. Hopefully this will encourage some more people to contribute. It never has been easier :-)

And of course, Hibernate Search 4 comes with new features like near real time search, new per-index backend architecture, Hibernate Core 4 support, new portable and efficient binary format between nodes. You can read more in our previous blog posts.

Get the release

Check out the release and as usual, make sure you read the Migration guide when you upgrade from a previous version.

After quite a pleasant time off the road, it looks like break time is over for me. I'm quite happy and terrified at the same time as it allows me to meet and chat with you but also means I set expectations and have less time to deliver on the projects.

Topics

I will cover mainly Hibernate OGM, a general presentation explaining

• why NoSQL databases are here,
• where Hibernate OGM comes,
• how things are done inside and
• what is the status of the project.

I will also discuss what is Ceylon, what this new language brings you and what our status is.

And finally, I'll do a couple of appearances on various JSR related panels on everything Java EE 7 and Bean Validation 1.1 in particular.

Conferences

The big two are JavaOne and Devoxx (which one is biggest, I'll let you judge ;) )

JavaOne (Oct 2nd - Oct 7th: San Francisco, USA)

JPA on NoSQL: An Approach with Hibernate OGM, Wednesday, 03:00 PM, Hilton San Francisco - Imperial Ballroom A

The Road to Java EE 7: Is It All About the Cloud?, Panel, Wednesday, 11:30 AM, Hilton San Francisco - Imperial Ballroom A

Lightning Talks: JSRs in Progress, No idea when that one is but we will find out :)

There are many other JBoss and Red Hat technologies related talks at JavaOne, check it out.

RivieraDev (Oct 20th-21st: Sophia-Antipolis, France)

JPA on NoSQL: An Approach with Hibernate OGM, Friday oct 21st, 9:00 - really?!)

Ceylon, Friday 14:00. I am not speaking here but I'll certainly be there and give moral support to Stephane :)

YaJUG (Oct 25th, Luxembourg)

With the remaining time, we will also have either a discussion around What's new in Hibernate Search or a Hibernate Q&A panel on anything Hibernate technologies related.

JUDCon (Oct 31st - Nov 1st, London, UK)

JUDCon is the big JBoss community event. I'll be hosting with my friend Max a live recording of JBoss Community Asylum podcast Oct 31st at 19:00.

Devoxx (Nov 14th - Nov 18th, Anvers, Belgium)

Devoxx is the most influential Java conference these days and that's its 10th anniversary. That will be big :)

JPA on NoSQL: An Approach with Hibernate OGM, Thursday Nov 17th at 14:00

The Ceylon programming language: say more, more clearly, Friday Nov 18th at 11:50 (yes this year there is a very good reason to stay till the end :) )

Podcasts (all year long, Internet)

I also hosts two podcasts

One about JBoss Community technologies JBoss Cummunity Asylum with Max Andersen. That's in English and yes releases are infrequent but Max is lazy.

And one about Java in general Les Cast Codeurs with Guillaume Laforge, Antonio Goncalves, Vincent Massol and Arnaud Heritier. That's in French.

Now you know where to find me in the next few months, come and say hi.