I've just spent hours trying to figure out why a SAX1 class was being picked up by Tomcat, and used instead of my SAX2 class.
It turns out that the 'java' script of j2sdk1.3 sneakily adds /usr/share/java/repository to the classpath, and I had, for reasons long forgotten, installed 'lib-sax-java'. Now actually, this is the second draft of this email. The first had the subject "Aargh.. which FIEND invented /usr/share/java/repository??", used many expletives, and questioned the competence and sanity of the Java Policy authors. But I'll spare you that ranting; let's just say I think it's a horrifically bad idea to have a free-for-all in one's classpath. Developer communities gradually gain experience, and if the Java community has learned anything, it's that **classpaths are evil**. This is *worse* than a hardcoded classpath, because it's not even visible to users! I can see one counterargument; I should have installed Tomcat from a .deb, which would have noticed the conflict. This argument only holds for *users*. I am a *developer*, usually working with stuff from CVS. Even for users, 99% of Java programs out there are not debianized. Conclusion: Debian is a Java developer-hostile operating system. No Java developer can use Debian's packaged Java apps without risk of unsolvable (for non-root) classpath conflicts. I have since uninstalled every Java package I can find. --Jeff
