(Actually, this last restriction may be removed if I ever get around to finishing my own java source parser - when that's done, you actually will be able to deal with 175 annotations under 1.4 if you have the original source files available. For that matter, it's not too hard to imagine writing something that parses the 175 annotations out of a classfile while running 1.4 - it's just not clear to me that anyone will have a need to do this).
Perhaps shomething could be done in conjunction with retroweaver (.sourceforge.net)? That will generate 1.4 classes from 1.5, without the need for source parsing. Keeping the annotations in standard 1.5 form would appear to be convenient for most people.
Tom Hawtin
