[jdom-interest] A utility Element subclass and a request for API extension

[Elliotte Rusty Harold]

At 11:38 AM -0800 3/21/02, Jason Hunter wrote:
>Comments from the list?  The good part about an open source project is
>we can see what people think?  I'm easy either way.
>
>My one concern is do these methods go on Element (setAttribute),
>Attribute (setValue), or both?
>

I just find this really unnecessary. It's just another symptom of API 
bloat.  Everyone has their own convenience methods that they want, 
most of which aren't useful to more than 10% of users. Java has 
perfectly good ways to convert primitive data types to strings. 
There's no need for JDOM to reinvent them. Minimalism is part of 
simplicity. It makes it easier to look at the Javadoc and grok 
everything you need to understand. The bigger it gets the harder it 
becomes to learn this in the first place.
-- 

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| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo at metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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