Re: Depending on policy [was Re: Implementation of take (multiple) in Jini starter kit]

On 16/08/06, Greg Trasuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> In the context below, I would write the 'while' loop, even if I knew it
> would probably only execute once.  Over the years I've learned that
> implementors will find ways to break my code if I let them.  They may
> not do it in this version of the product, or the next, but they are very
> patient and will eventually get to it.  So I write to the
> specification.  Specifications may change, but when they do, it will
> usually be after a public discussion and consideration of the impacts,
> rather than somebody deciding they know a better way on a Friday
> afternoon.
>
> Not to  mention that from a management point of view, it always bothers
> me if I know I'm locked in to a single vendor's product, since I'm
> relying on 'optimizations' in that product.

+1

I agree with Greg. The primary concern I always have is that writing
code to vendor specific implementations is guaranteed to lock you in
(which is never good) and also makes you susceptible to a whole host
of niggling little bugs that other people (who are using other
implementations) cannot replicate -  which makes debugging a
nightmare. I have seen this (more than once :) ) even where people are
using the same implementation but it is configured very slightly
differently.

If you are writing code to take advantage of vendor optimisations then
I think you need to make it very clear to everyone that you are
actually designing a <VENDORS NAME> based system rather than a
Javaspace or JMS or whatever else type of system. Trying to switch out
vendor A for vendor B can be a real problem - I would suggest that
many "standard" J2EE type projects are stuck in this tar pit and have
no real chance of escaping despite the fact that they are nominally
J2EE compliant.

A real problem for me is that the line between specification compliant
and vendor optimisation can be very fine and very blurred - if you
have only ever used one implementation how can you know whether you
are truly compliant or not?

Ewan

> Also, it seems to me that if you use the second option, there might be
> some concurrency issues, etc.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Greg.
>


--
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