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Subject: XOM API for Processing XML with Java

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  • From: Tatu Saloranta <cowtowncoder AT yahoo.com>
  • To: xom-interest AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [XOM-interest] Iterable Elements
  • Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 21:55:12 -0700 (PDT)

2.5 years since the first non-beta release means that anyone with a brain
only started using Java 5 in production, say, 1.5 years ago. And by now,
significant portion of existing systems are being moved over; at least ones
still developed. Big corporations move slow -- sometimes for right, sometimes
wrong reasons.

Just because individual developers can afford to develop on leading edge does
not mean everyone can. And more fundamental a library is, slower it should
(in my opinion) move. Further, benefits of Java5 generics are generally
exaggerated by people; especially so for retro-fitting them in. For new
projects I find it more sensible to start with Java5. For mature libraries
like XOM (or Lucene etc) there's much less incentive. Java5 is just icing on
the cake, fluff but not much stuff (except for concurrency packages).

Anyway, this discussion is boring since it's been done over and over again
not only here, but also on JDOM and Lucene lists, and probably dozens others
that I do not follow.

-+ Tatu +-

----- Original Message ----
From: Randall R Schulz <rschulz AT sonic.net>
To: xom-interest AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 6:46:45 PM
Subject: Re: [XOM-interest] Iterable Elements

Elliotte,

On Tuesday 29 May 2007 18:17, Elliotte Harold wrote:
> Cass Costello wrote:
> > What are the disadvantages you see, Elliotte?
>
> Incompatibility with everyone still on 1.4 is the big problem.

Java 5 / 1.5 was released by Sun two years and eight months ago today.
We're very far out from that release. Compatibility with 1.4 is a
dinosaur problem, and it is highly dubious whether institutions that
cannot find a way to migrate to 1.5 should dominate the decisions of
library providers.


> It would also needlessly duplicate functionality in the API. In XOM
> there's exactly one way to do it, and Iterator isn't it. Use a
> NodeList.
>
> Finally, you'd have to figure out what to do about the remove()
> operation. I don't think there's a good answer for that.

There's no obligation to implement remove(). You can throw an
OperationNotSupportedException while remaining compliant with the API
specification. See <http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/> for
confirmation.


> XOM quite deliberately does not expose overly generic collections
> APIs that don't perfectly fit the problem space. I don't intend to
> start now.

Iteration over interior nodes does not "perfectly fit" an object model
that is strictly tree structured? That's hard to accept or defend.


Randall Schulz
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