On Fri, 2004-07-23 at 10:09, robert burrell donkin wrote:On 22 Jul 2004, at 01:27, Simon Kitching wrote:On Thu, 2004-07-22 at 08:54, robert burrell donkin wrote:
<snip>
So I'm currently in favour of upgrading the BeanUtils dependency. However I'd like to read Stephen's arguments....
i don't have an url to hand but the general point is that by shipping
the classes in the collections package we need (as part of the digester
jar) we maximize the choice of dependencies since this would allow
users to use digester with previous beanutils releases.
At this point, I'm completely lost. The problem just seems intractible to me. We can't keep binary compatibility forever, without crushing all innovation. But shipping binary-incompatible releases of libs in container environments will, apparently, cause major pains to users of those containers.
I might just move to Mono :-(
it's not quite as bad as that :)
better container design (plus later generation container specifications formulated with the lessons of experience) means that (for modern containers) these issues aren't as painful as they once were. (in addition, a number of container vendors such as bea and tomcat 5.1 typically repackage deep libraries.)
in terms of innovation, binary compatibility doesn't quite crush it though it does slow the pace of change. this is one of the unfortunate aspects of working on mature, well used code. IMHO the most important thing to avoid is a constant drip-drip-drip of binary incompatibilities through minor versions. users are much more willing to suffer a little pain when the gains are great. so, it's often the case that radical innovations (where the gains are obviously great) are more likely to be acceptable than smaller, less innovative steps.
personally speaking, i'd gladly support anyone who had the energy to push a digester 2 project forward. IMHO the digester one design has been pushed just about as far as it can. starting digester 2 would allow free refactoring without having to worry about binary compatibility (and deprecation). all it takes is a committer with enough energy...
- robert
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