Mike McGrady wrote:
I think there really is no serious question that OSGi is a huge advancement beyond the horrid Java class loading default model. Greg, so far as I can tell you are willing to go down with the ship and are against all change. I doubt if many will have the desire to battle your tremendous and admirable energy in support of the status quo.
I don't think you should really read this much negativity into what I said Mike. What I said was from my perspective as a person not using OSGi and hence no real experience with it. I can read the docs, which I have done to a limited extent as just cursory scanning, from time to time, over the years. I don't ever find anything interesting and compelling to suggest I should discard all the things that I have done to build systems that are pluggable, customizable and dynamic and "switch out" to OSGi. It might seem like I'm not interested. I'm interested, just not compelled to do something because I don't have a 'need' and I don't see a 'benefit', yet.
The "horrid Java class loading default model" is a "default". It clearly is changeable, since OSGi can stipulate something different for their specification and implementation. Jini 2.0 development brought us the PreferredClassLoader, which made it really easy to put "everything" in the Jar, and make sure that "my implementation" gets used so that I can fix bugs in base classes that I use everywhere, without having to replace jars on other clients that don't need a class they are not using updated.
Can you share your viewpoint on the issues that you think the "horrid...default model" has, and which of those issues OSGi fixes? Since you pulled that issue out in your response, it seems like a hot point that I'd like to know your perspective on.
Thanks Gregg Wonderly
