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Subject: Re: requirements, dependencies, jdk...
From: Oleg Kalnichevski <olegk@apache.org>
To: HttpComponents Project <httpcomponents-dev@jakarta.apache.org>
In-Reply-To: <362028.71641.qm@web26115.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
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Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:08:27 +0100
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On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 15:52 +0100, Stojce Dimski wrote:
> Do you people have considered moving code to Java 5 and maybe using
> something like this http://retrotranslator.sourceforge.net/ for
> backward compatibility for Java 1.4/1.3 ? There is even a maven plugin
> ;-)
> Some small dependency as
> http://backport-jsr166.sourceforge.net/index.php could bring benefits
> of java.util.concurrent...
> Many many users which use Java 5/6 will have not even one dependency...
> What is the reason to remain on 1.3, and religious refuse to any
> dependency ?
> There are http://code.google.com/p/google-collections/ which will
> probably become a part of Java7, have a look:
> http://publicobject.com/2007/09/series-recap-coding-in-small-with.html
> and tell me if this is of no use and benefit...
> Maybe some small compromise could benefit greatly, WDYT ?
> 
> 

Hi Stojce

Here's my personal take on this issue

(1) Initially the main reason for 1.3 compatibility was easy portability
to Java Micro Edition. Now, as Sun is believed to be considering
deprecating JME in favor of straight JSE, 1.3 compatibility may no
longer be of any practical value, but 1.4 compatibility may still prove
useful.

(2) HttpCore is meant to be used at the very bottom of a complex
component stack. The use of external dependencies has unpleasant
implication of forcing the user into transitive dependency on a
_specific_ version of those dependencies. The more transitive
dependencies there are, the higher are the chances of running into a
version conflict. Low level libraries such as HttpCore ought not have
external dependencies if they want to play nicely with other libraries.

HttpCore is currently a more mature set of components in HttpComponents,
but in future its importance will lessen as there will be other higher
level components built on top of it such as HttpClient, which are more
suitable for end users. We can certainly be much less restrictive about
JRE compatibility requirement and the use of external dependencies for
those components. 

I personally would favor upgrading HttpClient 4.0 to Java 1.5, for
instance. It is still not too late. 

Oleg


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