[Biojava-l] RE: Re: JDK1.4 and IDE's

[Phillip Lord]

>>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas Down <td2@sanger.ac.uk> writes:

  Thomas> If we get to the point where most/all core developers are
  Thomas> using 1.4, we should make sure we still build on 1.3
  Thomas> reasonably regularly for testing purposes.

  Thomas> Of course, deciding when to start using the JSR014 generic
  Thomas> types is going to be even harder *sigh*.

                
        Using the generic type system is going to be a fascinating
thing to do, and is probably going to require substantial changes to
the biojava interface, and some of the implementations I think. The
key problem at the moment is that the Element alphabets are currently
represented as objects, rather than as a specific class, so its not
possible to use them generically as types. Also some of the
implementations check that an element is valid part of a sequence
Alphabet at runtime, whilst genericity should allow this to be done at
compile time. 

        It would be interesting to know when the planning for this work
starts (which I known will probably not be for some time). I currently
have a fair bit of Java which relies on my own sequence API, and I
have been considering both porting it to biojava, and/or using
generics within it. To be able to do both at the same time would save
me a lot of effort. And of course provide me with the impetus to get
off my back side and actually do the work! Although as I generally
code sitting down this is probably a bad metaphor.

        Phil