[jdom-interest] Java 5 planning

[Mattias Jiderhamn]

Jason Hunter wrote (2008-03-08 11:49):
> Michael Kay wrote:
>>> Do we risk new users going with other XML object models if the other 
>>> projects are Java 5 clean on compiles and we're not?
>>
>> I'm not actually concerned about whether I have to recompile my code 
>> to work with a new JDOM.
>
> What I meant by "Java 5 clean on compiles" was that a compile would 
> output no warning messages.  That is, if other projects jumped the 
> bridge to Java 5 compatibility then perhaps over time new users would 
> view those projects as superior because they didn't get a pile of JDK 
> warnings on each compile.  Warnings scare people.
I believe lack of Java 5 support can scare new users off. Not so much 
because of the compiler warnings, but because we've had generics for 
more than 3 years now. If a user notices the lack of generics support 
they may think "Hey, this piece of software probably haven't been 
maintained in years, so I better look for something newer that's still 
being maintained". (And I believe most people will not bother checking 
the mailing list)

 /Mattias