[Source] Xj3D teleconference proposal: development branch merging

[Justin Couch]

Don Brutzman wrote:

> Xj3D has been "one version behind official release JDK" so
> we are considering upgrading to JDK 1.6.

I recently chatted with Alan about this because of the lower level
codebase requirements. This weekend I'm making the last releases of
j3d.org core and AV3D codebases that will compile with 1.5. After that,
everything will be 1.6. This implies a core dependency on 1.6 for Xj3D if
you wish to keep going forward with those libraries.

> We also discussed use of both Ant and/or Make.  NPS uses ant.
> We all agreed that build_common.xml, build.xml/build_NPS.xml
> and Makefile are all OK to keep going for whoever wants to
> keep them operational.

If you can guarantee that the build system will detect and fail when it
finds circular dependencies, move to ant. However, you will find that it
is far more complex and far, far more difficult to maintain than what is
there currently. I'm working with a similar sized codebase right now that
didn't check for that and it's a fucking huge nightmare to do anything
with - it takes me 5 times longer to get anything done than it does with a
sane codebase. No circular dependencies is an absolute hard requirement as
far as I'm concerned for any build system.

-- 
Justin