> > Hey Guys,
> >
> > An update on the very slow progress of the Java5 upgrade..
> 
> I think it's going extremely well!

Since everyone's giving updates on Java5 progress, I thought I'd chime
in as well.  JBlanket's upgrade has been slower than I expected.  I've
watched BCEL's progress over the summer, and nothing substantial for
Java5 support ever came.  In the meantime, I've been working to switch
JBlanket over to use ASM (http://asm.objectweb.org).  It has a very
different paradigm about bytecode manipulation, and JBlanket's
structure had grown around BCEL so it's been slow going to restructure
parts of JBlanket to accept ASM.

I'm to the point now where I can instrument .class files, and I've got
a bit more work to do on categorizing methods (this one is untestable,
this one is excluded, etc.).  It will probably take another couple
sessions of work, and then some pretty thorough testing before it's
ready to release.  What are some projects (one small, one big, maybe?)
I can try it on (java 1.4) that have existing results so I can compare
and make sure I'm generating the same stuff with ASM?  I figure I can
probably compile the StackyHack module with Java5 and see if JBlanket
works there.  I've also got a bunch of projects at work that use Java5
that I can try it out on.

After this upgrade is finished I don't feel confident that the
codebase could evolve any further, at least under my work.  I'm just
not in the code frequently enough to keep it in my head, and there are
too many spider-like dependencies between the different classes and
layers for me to cut it apart effectively without fearing to break
something.  I'd prefer a simple rewrite from the ground up, with
cleaner separation of dependencies, to major evolution in the future.

Sorry for the delay, but I'm glad to hear my Java5 work seems to be
progressing at about the same pace as the rest of the Java5 work.

Thanks,

Tim

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