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From: Niclas Hedhman <niclas@hedhman.org>
To: dev@cocoon.apache.org
Subject: Re: svn commit: r124693 - in cocoon/branches/BRANCH_2_1_X/src:
   blocks/authentication-fw/java/org/apache/cocoon/webapps/authentication
 /configurationblocks/axis/java/org/apache/cocoon/components/axis/provi ders
       blocks/forms/java/org/apache/cocoon/forms/eventblocks/forms/java/org/a
 pache/cocoon/forms/flow/javascript
       blocks/forms/java/org/apache/cocoon/forms/flow/javascript/v2blocks/for
 ms/java/org/apache/cocoon/forms/formmodel
       blocks/paranoid/java/org/apache/cocoon/servletblocks/scratchpad/java/o
 rg/apache/cocoon/components/flow/javascript/fom
       blocks/scratchpad/java/org/apache/cocoon/generationblocks/web3/java/or
 g/apache/cocoon/components/web3/impl
       java/org/apache/cocoon/components/flow/javascript/fomjava/org/apache/c
 ocoon/servlet
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 13:29:08 +0000
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On Saturday 15 January 2005 04:32, Antonio Gallardo wrote:
> I am also planning to add Read/Write Object methods on some of this
> classes.

Serialization is often taken too lightly, and Sylvain and Vadim are both 
expressing this somewhat indirectly.

Serialization *must* be considered a public interface, IF you expect different 
versions of the application to co-exist with each other, OR that the 
serialized data is expected to survive from one version to the next.

The "public interface" aspect should then be viewed in the exact same light as 
a public Java interface/class, which Cocoon has plenty. You can not go about 
and change them friviously, even if the change doesn't break the Cocoon 
distro itself. Such changes are not happening, not because people can't do 
them, but because they know how it must be dealt with.
Serialization is not a technical problem, it is a people problem (just like 
the public interfaces) and the best guards against improper use, I think, is 
education, peer-review and tests.


Cheers
Niclas