r2dbc feasibility for production applications and future roadmap

Question

I've been closely following r2dbc updates by pivotal and I wish to build my application using this approach. I have tried few small applications with r2dbc postgres driver as below :

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-data-jdbc</artifactId>
            <version>1.0.0.r2dbc-SNAPSHOT</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.r2dbc</groupId>
            <artifactId>r2dbc-postgresql</artifactId>
            <version>1.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT</version>
        </dependency>

As mentioned by Pivotal, this is an experimental project whose end goal is to ultimately influence ADBA. This could be very useful if included in release versions of Spring/SpringBoot. Now the question is, what exactly are the drawbacks which stops Pivotal from including it under a RELEASE version. Also, is it suggested to go live with a SNAPSHOT version?

Thanks, GV

Answer 1

The biggest drawback toward making an officially RELEASE'd version of R2DBC's modules is simply that it's too early.

We iterating with several modules (PostgreSQL, H2, and MS SQL Server), and community feedback is critical towards honing the driver-level SPI along with building more user-friendly clients.

If you check it out, we just released 1.0.0.M6.

This project will thrive with more community involvement and feedback. As for when it will be ready to be included in Spring Boot, we don't know the answer to that.