[jdom-interest] What do we want JDOM to be?

[Guy Nirpaz]

Hi All,

Recent discussions on this mailing list clearly show that not everybody
understands the same way what is 80% (or 95%) and what isn't, and belongs to
20% (or 5%). The project initiators (Brett and Jason) stated that JDOM isn't
going to encapsulate everything that can be done with XML API .The big
question is what goes in and what stays out?

Most people really like JDOM the first time they lay their hands on it. And
the excitement even increases when they do actual coding using JDOM (at
least me and my team have). But, after a while people start looking for more
advanced features - like XPath, XSLT, etc... . Some of them are inside JDOM
some aren't yet and some will never be.

I think it is a good point in the JDOM lifecycle to have a discussion on
what eventually will get into JDOM and what will stay out.

For example - is JDOM going to support XPath? (I know bob is working on
that) If so, what are the features that we need to add to the API for XPath
support? The same question is valid for XLink, XInclude, XSLT and others.

I believe that if we get to agree on the functional spec. we will be able to
clearly identify the design choices. People will be able to find out if JDOM
is right for them (or will be in the future) or not - and yes, there are
cases when it isn't ;-)

Guy Nirpaz
Java Architect

Tantian Corp.
guyn at tantian.com