Re: [cp-patches] Serialization UIDs patch

[Michael Koch]

On Sunday 05 September 2004 12:50, Andrew John Hughes wrote:
> On Sun, 2004-09-05 at 07:00, Michael Koch wrote:
> > On Sunday 05 September 2004 03:32, Andrew John Hughes wrote:
> > > A quick patch to sort out some of the serial version UIDs,
> > > as well as correcting a couple of AccessibleRoles I spotted
> > > that shouldn't be null.
> >
> > SerialVersionUIDs dont make much sense as Tom Tromey pointed to
> > me lately. Serialization is not supported with Swing anyway and
> > SUN changes the SerialVersionUIDs with every release, even in the
> > 1.4.2 patch series. So it would be hard to follow them.
> >
> >
> > Michael
>
> I agree with you as regards the Swing GUI components -- Sun states
> that serialization of these is not dependable between versions, and
> thus they are not making any effort to keep steady UIDs.  However,
> other classes are actively maintained to be backwards-compatible as
> regards serialization (java.util.Calendar is one).  Where classes
> are expected to be compatible other major versions of Sun's JDK
> (say 1.3 and 1.4), we should aim to be compatible too, IMO, so
> things like RMI will still work.  As Japi spots these differences,
> its not too difficult to track these things, and fix them as and
> when there is time (they are really a major priority, but useful to
> have nonetheless).  If it is the case that we shouldn't be handling
> these, then this should really be noted somewhere in the on-line
> material.


As I said: "Serialization is not supported with Swing". 
java.util.Calendar is not Swing. We always aimed to be compatible for 
the classes that really support serialization.

I find it just annoying to change the serialVersionUIDs with every SUN 
bugfix release.


Michael