gavin.king@gmail.com wrote on 01/08/2009 08:46:13 PM:
> On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 6:46 AM, Jim Knutson <knutson@us.ibm.com> wrote:
> > but I think that's beside the point.
> > The point is that there's a platform pattern.  To integrate with the
> > platform, I think you need to conform to the platform pattern.  If
> > you don't like the platform pattern, then the entire pattern ought
> > to be consistently changed, not just one portion of it.
>
> Jim, this doesn't seem right to me.
>
> "Platform patterns" begin somewhere. A pattern is first introduced in
> one spec, and people notice that the pattern is useful and has a wider
> range of usefulness, and then they start to reuse the pattern in other
> places in the platform.
>
> Take annotations, for example.
>
> Annotations were first trialed in the EJB spec and in the WS stuff in
> Java EE 5. They were not supported in the servlet spec, the JSF spec
> or anywhere else!
>
> Someone could have reasonably raised the objection during Java EE 5
> that the use of annotations in EJB3 was inconsistent with the
> "platform pattern" for specifying metadata.

It was raised as an objection and the pushback that was recieved was that
there was no time left to address it in the other specs.  So, yes, there
was a conscious effort for platform consistency.  It was understood that
the other technologies would follow suit during EE 6 and they have.  In
other words, it was not a trial.  Trial "standards" are never a good
idea.  That's why open source plays an important role in understanding
what the industry wants prior to nailing things down in a standard.

I don't think the same could be said here.  It's not a conscious effort
that the platform as a whole is going to move to this XML style and just
doesn't have the time.  At least not yet it isn't.

Thanks,
Jim Knutson
WebSphere J2EE Architect