Subject: Re: JGSS bindings

From: Michael Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 13:41:42 -0500

At 09:50 AM 2/9/99 -0800, Mike Eisler <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> At 10:14 AM 2/8/99 -0800, "Jack Kabat" <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> 
>> >Michael, I think it would be helpful if you could provide some sample
>> >application code showing the usage of your API [....]
>> 
>> Sure. It's little above the level of pseudo-code, but there's 
>> a test driver for our implementation which can read and laughed
>> at, at <http://www.panix.com/~jlefevre/GSS/org/tiaa_cref/pseudo.java>.

>This examples has lines of code like:
>
>import org.tiaa_cref.DCAAF1_0.DAAClient.*;
[....]
>Your approahc, which is a consequence of exposing the interfaces
>to the Java programmer, appears to require explicit references to a
>mechanism (or it's implementation thereof).

The code you're looking at is for an early version; we ended up implementing
the approach based on instantiating a class whose name is retrieved 
from a system property. This technique is described in a comment 
next to the line (in pseudo.java) which instantiates the specific 
implementation class, to which you -- quite understandably -- object. 

At the risk of repeating myself, I will state yet again that implementing
a "veneer" to which mechanisms can attach with an SPI -- ideally, a 
published one -- strikes me as a Good Idea. If this "veneer" implementation
had a well-known name, and could be instantiated directly by applications, 
so much the better. My only wish in this regard is that the actual 
"contract" between this or any other implementation (on the one hand) and 
applications (on the other) be expressed as a package of interfaces. Surely 
the usefulness of interfaces is noncontroversial in the Java community?  

--Michael Smith
  [email-masked]

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---

From: Mayank Upadhyay <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 12:47:21 -0800 (PST)

> from a system property. This technique is described in a comment 

That is better.

> the usefulness of interfaces is noncontroversial in the Java community?  

Yes, and there is a right place and a wrong place to use them. You
certainly do not want all of JDK to be interfaces and have to instantiate
all JDK classes through system properties or a factory. You use classpaths
to use a different JDK. 

Michael, if you wouldn't mind could you please use the current Java
bindings, convert them to interfaces if you like, and post a sketch of a
sample server program that can accept connections that might need
different mechanisms. You may add system properties or factory classes as
you please.

Thanks much!

-Mayank