[BEAM-13011] Improve xlang docs

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: P2
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: Not applicable
• Component/s: cross-language, website
• Labels: stale-P2
• Assignee: David Huntsperger
• Reporter: Reza ardeshir rokni
• Created: 06/Oct/21 21:29
• Updated: 01/Feb/22 21:30
• Resolved: 28/Jan/22 14:28

Description

The documentation for xlang components is a mix of tutorial, guide and how to which is very difficult to follow, especially if coming to Xlang for the first time.

http://beam.apache.org/documentation/programming-guide/#multi-language-pipelines

I would recommend:

1-
That  talk from Beam summit :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt5DMP9Cwz0
Be replicated within the docs, including the rpc calls between the expansion service and other components that he references in the talk.

2-
Separate out the guide material from tutorial as two different pieces

3-
Provide a Hello world Python in Java and Java in Python example which includes full working commands.

5-
We reference classes in :
https://github.com/apache/beam/blob/master/sdks/python/apache_beam/transforms/external.py

But we dont really say how those classes should be run, this should also be part of the tutorial.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #16649