| [jakartaee-tck-dev] A quick thought about signature tests |
Hi,I just hit a side-effect I have not thought about earlier, which I want to bring to a discussion about the idea of removing/replacing signature tests. I am not sure whether it is supports the idea of having the signature tests removed or contrary...
The idea I heard quite some time ago, and it may not be valid any longer, is that the signature tests are no longer needed, since the API is brought over from maven central and noone is modifying the API any longer. The side-effect of the signature tests is as follows:
Suppose a product of version say 9.X compatible with a specification (CDI, JSON-B, any particular spec, not Jakarta EE spec) of version Y, part of say Jakarta EE 9 (I chose 9 for simplicity, but it could be 10 or any further version).
Suppose a product of version 9.X+1, that is still supposed to be compatible with Jakarta EE 9. Suppose a specification of version Y+1 (part of say Jakarta EE 10), backward compatible with version Y. When the product 9.X+1 replaces specification Y with Y+1, the TCK signature tests for the Jakarta EE 9 will fail. Without the signature tests, however, when the specification Y is replaced with Y+1, the Jakarta EE 9 TCK pass, because of the backward compatibility of Y+1, even though there is Y+1 API in the 9.X+1 and the whole product 9.X+1 is still Jakarta EE 9 compatible, despite it is using Y+1 API (And it may be compatible with the Y+1 spec at the same time).
Thanks, Jan