Re: [aspectj-dev] AspectJ Custom Attributes

[Eugene Kuleshov <eu@xxxxxxxx>]

Wes,

  I am Canadian, so that was my 0.02 CAD. :-)
  Yes it could be my personal opinion, but only because I work directly 
with the bytecode much more then an average Java developer.

  The compatibility guide you pointing to have little or no details 
about what exactly has to stay in the bytecode to maintain the binary 
compatibility besides some general statement. Actually I meant that 
overall usage of the bytecode produced and executed with AspectJ will 
grow and if format will have to change it would be more painful in the 
future then now, because tools that are using weaved classes would have 
to get updated version or use some conversion tool before moving to new 
aj runtime, or aj would have to keep track of its own dialects of the 
bytecode and support all ancient data structures.

  Even now I've seen less issues with AspectJ reweaving comparing to 
the problems when result of the bytecode transformation done by 3rd 
party tool became incompatible with AspectJ. But that could be because 
people come to us (the ASM developers) when their code fail on some 
exotic bytecode produced by AspectJ. :-)

  I do believe that in the future, when AspectJ gain more popularity 
we'll see even more then now and I don't think that it would be a good 
strategy to wait for this to happens.

  Also note that Java5 annotation attributes can be actually used with 
bytecode version down to 45.3 (JRE 1.1).

  regards,
  Eugene


Wes Isberg wrote:
> Hi Eugene,
>
> That's more than your personal .57 rubles - the long-term 
> implications *are* critical.
>
> Right now, the backwards compatibility we sign up to is stated here:
>
>   http://www.eclipse.org/aspectj/doc/next/devguide/compatibility.html
>
> It doesn't include promising other tools that we won't change
> our bytecode format.  Fair warning is the best path at present.
>
> Thanks,
> Wes
>
>
> > ------------Original Message------------
> > From: Eugene Kuleshov <eu@xxxxxxxx>
> > To: "AspectJ developer discussions" <aspectj-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Date: Thu, Oct-20-2005 12:51 PM
> > Subject: Re: [aspectj-dev] AspectJ Custom Attributes
> >
> > Wes,
> >
> >   I believe it is secure to say that AspectJ will be quite popular. 
> > So, one should take a serious look at the long term aspects of this 
> > issue untill it will be too late to get rid of the old luggage because 
> > it would affect backward compatibility with other tools...
> >
> >   Just my 0.02 cents.
> >
> >   Eugene