perfsonar development work

[Maciej Glowiak <>]

Loukik Kudarimoti wrote:
> Jason Zurawski wrote:
> > Hi Maciej;
> >
> >  
> > > Two years ago we started using Java 1.5.
> > > Isn't it the high time to switch to Java 1.6?
> > >     
> I wouldn't say its high time just because its been two years. But, I 
> agree with you that we should investigate this option thoroughly. If 
> there are real benefits to switch, we should do so.

Of course, the time is not the reason, but I think Java 6 is now quite 
stable, there is "Java 6 Update 4" what means most of initial bugs were 
fixed.

There is one major benefit: performance. I did not test it, but they say 
the performance of desktop and server applications is better.


> Example of a benefit would be the native SOAP support from Java 
> (possibly no need for axis) that Nina mentioned in Rome. Of course, this 
> may or may not be useful to us but thats exactly what we want to 
> investigate.

That's right. The full list of new features including "integrated web 
services" are on http://java.sun.com/javase/6/features.jsp


> > Is there any particular reason for switching to 1.5 over 1.6 (a new
> > feature, performance improvements?), conversely what bad things will
> > happen if some feature used in 1.5 is not supported in 1.6.  I seem to
> > recall some issues when the last jump between 1.4 and 1.5 was enacted.

Performance!
The list of compatibility/incompatibility is on: 
http://java.sun.com/javase/6/webnotes/compatibility.html


> > Switching versions may cause headaches depending on where you are trying
> > to install as well (RHEL comes to mind, I know I am able to find builds
> > of most java versions for Ubuntu however).

Ubuntu uses GNU Java by default. I was unable to run Lookup Service on 
it. For developers it's usually better to use various versions of Java 
and testing various applications/projects in many of them. However, I 
can understand the end user who would prefer installation of particular 
package from distribution. As far as I know both Java 5 and Java 6 are 
available to download through ubuntu package management system (for 
instance "sun-java6-jre" package)

> Indeed. All the points Jason mentioned have to be taken into account. 
> So, summarizing the answer to your question depends on answers to the 
> following :)
>
> 1. How much of effort does it involve to do the following
> *. Investigate the merits of using 1.6
> *. Investigate the disadvantages of using 1.6
> *. What effect would it have on our dependencies (RHEL being one of them)
> *. Calculate the total effort and time required to switch all services 
> and all current developments from 1.5 to 1.6
>
> 2. What real benefits do we gain by switching to 1.6? Can these benefits 
> justify the costs mentioned in point 1?
>
> Anybody wants to investigate?
> Loukik.

I think it would be better to switch to 1.6 because of performance 
reasons and some advanced features, however I will wait for the decision 
of others.

I don't think it's such complicated. After the release all developers 
could just download java 6 from sun's webpage, run their services on 
that and test if they work fine. We did exactly the same during last 
switch to Java 1.5 and it worked great.

Maciej


--

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| Maciej Glowiak        Network Research and Development            ||
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     Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center ||
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