Yes, Michael, I was the driving force behind that. I wanted to make sure that we've made an informed decision before dropping support for one JDK or another. Developers obviously like the new stuff but users are sometimes stuck with old stuff. It often takes them a bit longer to migrate although they usually skip a generation when they migrate.
Anyway. First, we talked about the questions we wanted to ask: http://markmail.org/message/y6h6lfzcupbvuww3 Then I set up the survey with one of the online survey service providers. I chose one that was free. http://markmail.org/message/xz72bqpkqy6dg5l5 At the end of the survey, I downloaded the data and visualized selected items with OpenOffice. All put together that resulted in the Wiki page mentioned by Ludger Buenger: http://wiki.apache.org/xmlgraphics/UserPollOct2007 I believe this survey, though took some time and effort to do, was worth it and it wasn't difficult to do. And I'll push for one again when we want to drop Java 1.4 support within the XML Graphics project. I expect it won't take too long until we do another as Java 1.4 has reached EOL last month. It's going to be interesting to see how the survey results change over time. But given the small data base, don't assume the results are 100% representative. HTH On 12.11.2008 06:42:33 Michael Glavassevich wrote: > > Any idea how this poll was done? A form you could submit on a website? > Jeremias, seeing your name as the last editor on the Wiki I'm guessing you > had something to do with it. Was this poll easy to set up? > > Thanks. > > Michael Glavassevich > XML Parser Development > IBM Toronto Lab > E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > "Ludger Buenger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote on 11/11/2008 > 09:34:08 AM: > > > Before Advancing beyond 1.3 I?d suggest to maybe initiate a usage > > poll analogous to http://wiki.apache.org/xmlgraphics/UserPollOct2007 > > to get an overview which JDK version is still in use and required by > > Xerces-J users. > > > > That would give the community a foundation to base a good decision upon. > > > > > > From: Michael Glavassevich [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 4:52 AM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; j-users@xerces.apache.org > > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Dropping JDK 1.2 support for Xerces-J (and possibly JDK 1. > > 3? 1.4? in the future) > > > > Hi all, > > > > (including [EMAIL PROTECTED] on the cc list to hopefully reach > > a wider audience) > > > > I would like to propose that we officially drop support for JDK 1.2 > > in the next release of Xerces-J. Though the documentation [1] states > > that Xerces supports JDK 1.2 it has been years since we have built > > or tested binaries with this level. All of the recent releases were > > built and tested with JDK 1.3. It was brought to my attention that > > the code [2] since at least 2006 has had a dependency on APIs > > introduced in JDK 1.3. So we inadvertently moved on awhile ago. It > > seems this has not been a practical issue for most users since we've > > received no posts on these lists about it and received no other bug > > reports. It's not clear that there would be much benefit in > > restoring JDK 1.2 compatibility at this point. It's been out of > > service for years and looking around Apache it seems most projects > > run on JDK 1.4 or higher with some of the stragglers [3][4] below > > that moving up soon. > > > > If you have serious concerns regarding Xerces abandoning JDK 1.2 > > support please send an email to the [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing > > list, specifying why you can't use a higher level of JDK and what > > parser features you are using. > > > > While on the subject I wonder what the community would think of us > > eventually dropping support for JDK 1.3 and possibly 1.4. There were > > features introduced in JDK 1.4 and 5 which Xerces could benefit from > > (e.g. NIO, java.lang.CharSequence, exception chaining, java.lang. > > StringBuilder, java.util.concurrent.*, etc...). That's not something > > I'm proposing today (or thinking of proposing for awhile) but would > > like to hear feedback from users (please send to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > apache.org) who may still need new versions of Xerces which run on > > JDK 1.3 and 1.4. It would also be nice hear from folks who've long > > since moved on to Java 5 and beyond and would like to see Xerces > > take advantage of JDK 1.4 and 5 features. > > > > Thanks. > > > > [1] http://xerces.apache.org/xerces2-j/faq-general.html#faq-11 > > [2] http://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/XERCESJ-1297 > > [3] http://marc.info/?l=ant-dev&m=122596549809889&w=2 > > [4] http://marc.info/?l=fop-user&m=119244442600564&w=2 > > > > Michael Glavassevich > > XML Parser Development > > IBM Toronto Lab > > E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > -- > > This message was scanned by ESVA and is believed to be clean. > > Click here to report this message as spam. Jeremias Maerki --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
