On Oct 31, 2005, at 12:50 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Personally I think that sharing common code is an absolute
requirement, and I cannot understand why anyone would question it.
<applies hat of devil's advocate>
New functionality (in this case, code sharing) should be questioned
if it causes a regression in the behaviour of Derby.
If sharing code causes problems, then those problems have to be
addressed somehow.
Better now than later. Better to be thorough than to be incomplete.
Not necessarily in that order. :-)
I cannot see any linking/versioning problem that would
justify maintaining multiple copies of the same code, or to maintain
your own version of external libraries.
That is, unless real world scenarios of Derby use, that currently
work, cease to function because of changes introduced by code sharing.
Working towards a goal of sharing common code, as often as possible,
is a *very* good idea. But, I think it's an idea that should be
applied sparingly, not exceedingly, across the current code base.
Personally, I feel that it would be better to apply the ideals of
code sharing to some new functionality (e.g. full text indexing) than
to try and retrofit the current code to share some particular bit of
existing functionality.
It's not that I believe that the opportunities for sharing code in
the current code base cannot be addressed and understood. I just
think that it may be more productive, at this time, to focus the
efforts of code sharing on some new functionality for which there is
no history against which the principles of code sharing need to fight.
That said, itches are there to be scratched. Clearly, David has found
an itch that is definitely in need of scratching. I encourage him to
scratch it however he sees fit. :-)
andrew
