[jdom-interest] Important proposal: Element/Document changes

[James Duncan Davidson]

on 7/25/00 7:15 AM, philip.nelson at omniresources.com at
philip.nelson at omniresources.com wrote:

> I am not overwhelmed by this proposal.  Not because the ideas aren't good,
> but because they aren't that much improved over the current api.

The API is showing a bit of maturity. :)

>> Is that true?  Naming this method getContent() might be nicer but that
>> will cause subtle bugs to existing code.  This also makes it clear the
>> List may contain various types of objects.
> 
> getContent would be better of course.  Fine with all whitespace.  Since the
> old getContent returned a String, wouldn't the compiler catch those?

Actually, given that this is pre-1.0 and you have a chance to fix something
-- and everybody using this code *should* know that things can change willy
nilly -- are we sure that this isn't a good time to cut to the chase and
just name getContent what it is?

I know that the door is closing fast -- but the door will never be open
again and you'll have to live with this for a long time. OTOH The most
compelling argument is that it's documented in the book.. So there's legacy
there that cannot be recaptured.

.duncan