[jdom-interest] Is JDOM dying?

[Malachi de AElfweald]

On 14 Mar 2003 17:19:34 +0100, Stephan Trebels <stephan at ncube.de> wrote:
> In my compromise not a single line of code using JDOM anyone had have
> written would be invalidated or behave any different.  The namespace set
> by new Element(String) should not be changed - that should definitely be
> rejected.

Although, I have to say that is where my primary disagreement is. If you 
want
the element to be created with ns="" (which I would hope no one ever does), 
it
should have to be explicit new Element(String, Namespace.NONE). The fact 
that
JDOM does not allow inheritance, IMHO, is a show-stopping bug. I have been 
a
strong advocate of JDOM for a few years now -- and am looking at dropping 
it
because it makes the code way to ugly to use Namespaces. I know other 
people
(Elliotte, for example), have completely different views on this. That is 
fine.

But for every person like me who took the time to try to get my point 
across -- how
many people just dropped JDOM without contacting the list because it didn't
work the way they expected?

You have to ask yourself -- if certain arguments keep popping up on the 
list, over
and over, year after year, doesn't that mean something is probably wrong?  
You may
think that you have the newest coolest API (as most of us have at some 
point), but
that doesn't mean it is right.  If it is non-intuitive and counter- 
productive, there
is a problem.  If people are using the list to find work-arounds because 
the API
"doesn't work", then something is wrong.

Does that mean you have to change it? NO.
Does that mean your API looses support when better ones come out? Of 
course. Look at AWT.

Malachi