What can the portable extensions do what build compatible extensions can not?
Ideally, nothing.
If that would be the case, why do we still have them in non-deprecated form?
To paraphrase my friend Greg from the Servlet spec; if you have a blue car and a red car, are they both red? Or does explicitly calling it a red car in this context means it’s the unique trait of that car compared to the other?
Now that you mention it, this is very much what we did - we chose `build compatible` to specify the unique trait that differentiates the new extension model from the old one.
I mean, yes, you can call them Build Compatible Portable Extension for the sake of absolute correctness but in my opinion that's a mouthful that's even harder to remember, pronounce or write in code.
Yes, but that's not what I meant ;) The Build Compatible Extension is clear. I was asking about what Portable extensions should be called then, as "Portable" are obviously not theit uniquely defining trait.
In that case, I'd rather have some javadoc explanation if people feel it is unclear and not break the whole thing.
A secondary question is, why would a name that’s only used in javadoc and the spec document break anything, let alone the whole thing?
I thought you meant to rename Portable extension interface since that would be breaking for any app/lib declaring one but from your comment I gather you rather meant to change build compatible extension name?
The existing Javadoc and spec now use the term "Portable Extension" in some 30 occasions or so. There is no such use in code in the existing spec. It only appears once in the new API: "SkipIfPortableExtensionPresent".
What I meant was changing "Portable Extension" in javadoc and spec to something that uniquely defines it.
Kind regards,
Arjan
