No, those projects were not left in the lurch by NetBeans dropping support for it. Projects were left in the lurch by NetBeans providing support for it for too early.
Gj On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 2:24 PM Sean Carrick <s...@pekinsoft.com> wrote: > GJ, > > I think one of the biggest mistakes in the history of NetBeans was to > provide support for the JSR 296 Swing Application Framework (SAF). We > should have waited until it was no longer a JSR. > > With this statement, I could not agree more strongly with you. NB should > have waited to support AppFramework until it was approved and included in > JDK7 (I believe that is the version JSR-296 was targeting). > > It should only have been supported in NetBeans once it became part of the > JDK. Since it in the end didn't become part of the JDK, it was essentially > dead. > > I do not like the phrase "essentially dead." I am only saying that because > I have recently procured a copy of the original source code and have been > in contact with Hans regarding it. I am in the process of bringing it up to > the JDK11 LTS and trying (!) to have it be Maven based. > > The problem isn't that SAF uses Ant and not Maven: instead, the problem is > that you're using a framework that was planned to be included in the JDK > but in the end wasn't, so is completely dead. > > Just because the framework was *planned* to be included in the JDK, but > in the end was not, does not mean that it is a problem that someone is > using it. The problem actually is that, while it had included (maybe > incorrectly) support in a very popular IDE, it was used and adapted by > quite a few projects over the years between NB6 through NB8.2. Then, once > those projects were using that framework, the popular IDE dropped > "out-of-the-box" support for it and all of those project were kind of left > in the lurch. However, Hans did a good job on that framework, at least to > the point that he brought it. It has solid principles and has quality > design. Also, that framework provides some application plumbing that is > perfect for smaller projects, as, sometimes, the NBP is just too much > framework for a project. > > Anyway, that is just my thoughts on it. Do not forget, GJ, you owe me a > slap when you see me. ;-) > > -SC >
