Marc, you make a good point about having to work against multiple servers. If 
we have a good SOAP
API, then, you're right, we shouldn't have to change it. The problem is, the 
API is not
necessarily all that good. And sometimes improving the functionality of 
existing features requires
modifying the existing API.

One way limit the impact of backward compatability would be to have the client 
be backward
compatible but not the server. If you get the latest client, you'll be able to 
work against any
existing server. Or we could freeze the most significant API's, connect, get 
project object, get
file object, get file, check in, and check out. Or at least required future 
versions of the server
to always support the current API for those features. 

You make a good case, Marc. I'll definitely consider what you're saying.

By the way, my first work on the 2.2 release will focus on speeding up SJ. I'm 
going to change SJ
to use SAX to read XML files instead of DOM. This should have a pretty big 
impact, I think. And
I'm going to switch SJ to use the latest version of Apache Axis. One change 
between Apache SOAP
and Apache Axis is that AS uses DOM and AA uses SAX. Using SAX for all SOAP 
calls should speed up
SJ significantly.

--Rob

--- Marc Palmer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Robert MacGrogan wrote:
> > Geez, still using a beta version :-)
> > 
> > Yes, the incompatibility messages are a major annoyance. It should be 
> > possible in all future
> > versions of SJ to add an SJ version value to the SOAP message (at least on 
> > connect) that will
> > allow the server to tell if it's a compatible client. Then the server could 
> > send back a
> message
> > that makes sense.
> > 
> > As for backward compatibility--this is not something I want to worry about. 
> > It is difficult
> enough
> > to add functionality to and improve SJ as it is. Look at how long it's 
> > taking me to get
> rolling on
> > 2.2 development. Adding a requirement that new servers must support old 
> > clients is, I think,
> just
> > too much to handle. Sometimes you really do need to change the API. (Look, 
> > for example, at
> > Hibernate 3--not API compatible with Hibernate 2.) The previous APIs might 
> > really be lacking
> and I
> > don't want to limit myself like that. 
> 
> Fine... but such changes should happen on -major- versions only. It's 
> not fun if you have 3 different version SJ servers to work with and you 
> need 3 clients installed.
> 
> There's no reason I can see, with a well designed SOAP API, that old 
> clients cannot continue to use the basic services in newer servers. I 
> think this is quite important, really...
> 
> New features should be added as new SOAP services on top of the core 
> services. Isn't this possible? I think it would really make sense.
> 
> > This may sound anti-user and maybe it is. But my response to that is that 
> > the client is free
> and
> > small and easy to download and install when necessary. 
> 
> As above, working with multiple SJ servers admin'd by different people, 
> is not fun. Imagine if SJ was used everywhere instead of CVS for open 
> source projects (wouldn't that be nice!).
> 
> You'd need lots of different client versions to be able to work. That's 
> not required with CVS (for example), to my knowledge.
> 
> > None of that excuses the ugly and confusing messages, however. That we will 
> > definitely fix.
> 
> Yes please :)
> 
> 
> -- 
> Marc Palmer    [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>                       
> Wangjammers - Java, J2ME and Web Consultants
>    ~ http://www.wangjammers.org/
> 
> 
> 
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