On Dec 13, 2007 8:42 AM, Jörg Schaible <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Oliver Heger wrote: > > (There was a similar discussion about commons lang recently.) > > > > Configuration used to support JDK 1.3. For the next release (either > > 1.6 or 2.0) I would like to drop this compatibility. The number > > of feature > > requests that require a newer JDK version is increasing. > > > > This raises a couple of questions: > > - To which JDK version should we switch? 1.4 or immediately to 1.5? > > - Should creating a compatibility branch be considered? (I doubt that > > there is enough energy and motivation for maintaining > > multiple branches.) > > - Does a switch in the JDK version require a major release? > > - Is a new package name required (at least for a major > > release if there > > are binary incompatible changes)? > > > > Any thoughts? > > - go for 1.5 > - take advantage of generics > - make 2.x > - use a different package name to allow 1.x and 2.x series to co-exist > - put 1.x branch into maintenance mode > - take this as chance to refactor and drop/clean-up any legacy stuff > (setDelimiter, setThrowExceptionMissing) > > IMHO a lot of the current Commons components lack of activity and > contributors, since everytime someone comes along and provides patches or > requests feature support based on stuff available in newer JDKs (e.g. > Preferences for commons-configuration), it is turned down by the "have to be > compatible to JDK 1.1" argument. While keeping compatibility is basically a > good thing and necessary, we should not hesitate and move on at some time. > The new language features of Java 5 are a good reason to do so. > > However, the old versions do not suddenly vanish also. It's just, that they > don't get new features. If someone is really eager on porting a new feature > of the head revision into the 1.x branch and make a release ... it's not > forbidden.
+1 to what Jörg and Torsten said. On the "use a different package name" issue I think there are differing opinions and so probably will have to be decided on a component-by-component basis by the devs involved in each component. In general I'm OK with an incompatible change as long as we use a major version number, but I think for other people/components wil opt for changing the package name. Niall > Just my 2 cents, > Jörg --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
