Geert Poels wrote: > > > > Why does Sun take a beta release and why include it by default ? > > Why include by default: For the convenience of folks who don't want to > have > > to explicitly download it from Apache. > Ok, but dozens of other things can be as well. :-) > But I agree XML is usefull enough :-)) > > > The real issue here is not that they're shipping beta code, but that > > they've included it on the extension classpath. > Extension classpath ? It's already in the bootstrap classes : > rt.jar and in the JDK sources. (beta3) > > > That looked like a great > > idea, but has turned out to be a bit of an education nightmare for those > > who want to use newer versions of those extension packagess. If Sun could > > do anything to help Java users understand that feature, and help them > > understand what's there and how to override it with newer versions. that > > would be VERY helpful. > It's documented : > http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.3/docs/tooldocs/findingclasses.html > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > How the Java Launcher Finds Extension Classes > Extension classes are classes which extend the Java platform. Every .jar > file in the extension directory, jre/lib/ext, is assumed to be an extension > and is loaded using the Java Extension Framework. Loose class files in the > extension directory will not be found. They must be contained in a .jar file > (or .zip file). There is no option provided for changing the location of the > extension directory. > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > > Including libraries like these usually happened through the community > process I suppose ? > Xalan nor Xerces gave any hits querying JCP : > http://search.java.sun.com/Search/jcp?qt=xalan&col=jcp&rf=0
I'd search for JDK 1.4 or XML or JAXP. > > Who at Sun has been in touch with the Xalan/Xerces developers to co�rdinate > this inclusion ? As far as I know most if not all the committers knew Xalan was going into JDK 1.4. Xerces however, is not in JDK 1.4. Xerces2 was deemed too unstable for a JDK 1.4 release. > > I agree on the usefullness of including an important lib like X&X in the > jre/jdk > but as you said not like this. > It's too frequently updated and upgrading is a pain in the ass. > As with webstart, maybe it would be an idea to consider the feature > of having the JDK updating itself. > (completely configurable of course; with forces and denies :-) ). > > I'm really interested why it immediately became part of the runtime, > who's co�rdinating this at Sun and what their plans are towards this. > It's not even in the release notes !! > http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/relnotes.html Follow the link to new features to: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/relnotes/features.html -Edwin
