> > > > There is a second approach to backwards compatibility that has not yet been > mentioned. I will raise it here and present some of its benefits so it can > at least be discussed. > > > > Instead of making the Tuscany Runtime support both OSOA and OASIS, we could > make Tuscany support OASIS only and provide tools that will help existing > OSOA Developers convert their legacy OSOA applications to OASIS. > > > > The advantage of this approach is that the Tuscany Runtime is kept clean > and simple – Tuscany is responsible for doing one thing – running OASIS SCA > applications. We do not need to compromise its design to support both OSOA > and OASIS. Supporting both OSOA and OASIS on the same runtime will be > complex and in places likely to be messy. > > > > In this approach, the complexity of backwards compatibility with OSOA > applications is contained within the conversion tools. These could do as > much of the conversion as possible automatically. Where there are issues, > the conversion tools can present the developer with options of how to > resolve the problems manually. > > > > I my humble opinion, supporting both OSOA and OASIS is just a short to > medium term thing. Eventually, all applications will be converted from OSOA > to OASIS and there will be no need to support OSOA. When the day comes when > OSOA is no longer required, it will be much easier to remove some OSOA to > OASIS conversion tools rather than ripping OSOA out of the Tuscany runtime. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Mark > ... snip
Hi Mark I certainly think a migration tool would be a useful thing but I think mandating migration doesn't present a good story for an infrastructure that is intended to bring together lots of different technologies at potentially lots of different versions. But you are right that achieving full backward compatibility at the expense of completing OASIS compliance would miss the point. I'm trying to get us to think about it now and at least make provision for it even if we don't test with it in the first instance. I started some pictures of different scenarios [1]. Luciano has made a start at making sure that both versions of the processors can be present. Even with this approach we can still build an OASIS only runtime if we need to and I don't see it holding us back particularly. So I think we should push it further and see how it goes. Regards Simon [1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/TUSCANYWIKI/Backward+Compatibility
