A couple months ago we discussed the JDK requirements for JMeter, because some new code came in with dependencies on 1.4. At the time I pushed to continue supporting 1.3, largely because these dependencies were relatively easy to work around and requiring 1.4 did not give us a huge benefit.
Now that we are setting out on a batch of new features for JMeter 2.0, perhaps it is time to consider this issue again. I believe it may be worthwhile to require 1.4 with this version of JMeter. 1.4 is well supported, and by the time JMeter 2.0 actually gets released it will be even more commonplace. And of course, since JMeter is an application rather than a library, we don't have to be as conservative as most of the other Jakarta projects.
I'm aware of three areas in the current JMeter code where we have changed the implementation specifically to support older JDKs:
1) The date input for the scheduler support (the GUI originally used a JSpinner but we changed it to multiple text fields)
2) I think there was a slightly more elegant method of getting caller class information for the Loggers when using 1.4 which we can't use in 1.3
3) There was some minor GUI tweak (on the main frame I think) related to setting the ratio between two areas of a split pane or something. This is commented out since the method isn't supported until 1.4.
As before, none of these items are big enough to warrant the switch. But since we're adding new features, we could also take advantage of some of these:
1) Use the java.util.prefs API for storing user preferences (probably wouldn't replace jmeter.properties, but could be used for some GUI preferences and things)
2) Use the java.nio API for efficient IO to disk -- perhaps we could write results out to a memory mapped file or something as the run is still going...this might offer better performance for long runs.
3) Use the Image I/O Framework to save results graphs
4) Use Swing JFormattedTextFields to improve input validation
There are probably other minor things as well.
Anyway, I'm obviously in support of requiring 1.4. If there are any objections, now would be the best time to voice them -- otherwise, let's feel free to start taking advantage of whatever 1.4 offers.
Jeremy http://xirr.com/~jeremy_a
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