XOM API for Processing XML with Java

["Michael Kay" <mike AT saxonica.com>]

> > The reason I don't want to play that game
> 
> But you _are_ playing it, in a way, by caving in to their 
> (implicit) demand that you stick to 1.4.

The game I'm talking about is retreating up-market: increasing your costs
and your prices to focus on the needs of a small number of top-end
customers. And I'm definitely not playing that game. On the contrary, I'm
doing what's needed to keep costs down and to meet the needs of the largest
possible user community.

It costs me and my user community as a whole very little to keep the latest
product running on JDK 1.4 for a year or two longer. It would cost me, and
therefore my user community, a great deal if I had to start fixing bugs in
old versions because there were users who weren't able to move forward.

It's not as if users are choosing to stick with JDK 1.4 because they are
resistant to change (which is what you seem to be suggesting). They're
forced into it because they have the misfortune to be using middleware
products that either don't yet work with JDK 1.5, or that cost a fortune to
migrate to JDK 1.5.

This isn't just theory, it's practical experience. I cut over from JDK 1.3
to JDK 1.4 relatively early, because I needed the new features such as
regular expression support, and I saw the pain that it caused. There's no
point inflicting that pain unless there are corresponding benefits, and with
JDK 1.5 the benefits are pretty marginal.

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/