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by Scott Delap.
Original Post: Common Projects Directory For Java?
Feed Title: ClientJava.com
Feed URL: http://www.clientjava.com/archives/wireless_mobile.rdf
Feed Description: Client/Desktop Related Java Development
Daniel H. Steinberg the editor over at Java.net has a blog about possibly having commons area for Java components.
It's about Time ...There have been discussions in the forums over whether these belong in the core APIs. The example that seems to keep coming up is a date picker. Instead of putting these in the core APIs, shouldn't these be independent projects that are not subject to the time schedules of the JCP and standard J2SE releases? But, others argue, then don't we end up with this wasted effort of many people repeating the same task? Others have answered that you can and should open source these succesful widgets or otherwise make them available...
He is mainly thinking out loud. However, I've had similar thoughts especially in the desktop area. Yet there is not good solution to any of this. I can make the argument that if you are a reasonably well informed developer you should be aware of JGoodies, Glazed Lists, and Foxtrot. None of those project are hidden in such a way that they are hard to find. So I'm not sold on a commons or certified API list for Java from that perspective. Also if you want a directory take your pick. There is Java.net, SourgeForge, FreshMeat, etc. So this leaves consolidation and organization as possbile benefits of having commons. The problem with this is that I don't think you can just impose structure to generate the two. People have to want to work together and establish project organization on larger projects. So we are back to where we started with only natural selection managing the 1000's of Java projects out there. Maybe that is the way it should be.
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