With the new JDK 1.4.2 available, and Sun generating hype about JDK 1.5 already, I have a proposed plan for the future.
I think we should carry Avalon 4 for Java 1.2 - Java 1.4.x. The reason for this is that JDK 1.5 has some serious features that will make our jobs a heck of a lot easier to develop the containers. Our Avalon 5 container should take advantage of those features. As a result, it will be easier to identify a set of tools and utilities and common meta info if we can guarantee a full featured JDK.
That means we will plan to support two different Avalons for a while. The Avalon 4 will be for all the users that are slow to upgrade, but need a robust management solution. Avalon 5 will be the "best of breed" approach, and will learn from our Avalon 4 experience. It should be considered an improvement project. I.e. how do we correct our mistakes without worrying about backwards compatibility, and how do we improve on our current model?
The support for Avalon 4 will not die out for a number of reasons. We should still push forward with a common Avalon container--slowly making changes and moving functionality out to container extensions (when we cross that bridge) to the point where the core is really not important. In that case we just decide which core is easiest to maintain and/or provides the best interface for users.
By the time Avalon 5 does come around we will have so much understanding on the subject of components you could call us domain experts ;P. It also means that we have a while before we can even think of starting Avalon 5. By defining Avalon 5 as Java 1.5 compliant or above we draw a line in the sand where both component writers and container writers can confidently incorporate language features to the best of our abilities.
Does this plan sound good?
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