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Subject: RE: JDOM vs DOM (was: Re: IRC chat log)
To: soap-dev@xml.apache.org
Message-ID: <OFD5A6B15D.FF9449C9-ON8525698A.005EF3D1@raleigh.ibm.com>
From: "Sam Ruby/Raleigh/IBM" <rubys@us.ibm.com>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 12:36:46 -0500
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Sanjiva Weerawarana wrote:
>
> I read the logs and I see discussion of using JDOM instead
> of DOM as the tree API. I would like to register my early
> and strong opposition to it .. DOM is a standard API as
> is SAX and I would like to use those two. This allows the
> use of pretty much arbitrary XML tools (like alternate
> parsers for example as has been brought up) and I'm opposed
> to precluding those in favor of a non-standard (albeit more
> programmer friendly) API. This is the life of standards
> playing .. whether you like it or not you gotta do it.
> Picking and choosing (or embracing and extending) would put
> us in the camp of the evil empire.

The JDOM crowd have been discussing pursuing a JSR for the topic.

> I have some recollection of hearing of a religious war on
> the JDOM/DOM topic on the xerces list .. if there are any
> veterans of that war here maybe they could give us the
> summary (of their side :-))?

There was a religious war on the Xerces lists, and some of the key
developers of JDOM were involved.  I don't believe there was a stronger
connection except in a discussion on modularity.  In a perfect world DOM
would be layered on top of SAX, but in the Xerces implementation this
encapsulation is broken.  Once you break the encapsulation for DOM, this
opens the door for discussions for breaking the encapsulation for JDOM, and
in general it is a slippery slope...

- Sam Ruby