Updating to Java 5

[Smoogle]

Please forgive my terminology...
My new job means that I'll be supporting & enhancing a 4 year old
struts application.
It uses the JDK 1.3
It runs on jakarta-tomcat-4.1.24
It is deployed to remote laptops via Java Web Start (1.0.1 I think)
It connects to an Oracle 9i database.

Before I get too busy making the application better, I want to upgrade
the various versions

Does anyone know of any issues that I might face when I upgrade to
Java 5, Tomcat 5 and the latest Java Web Start?

Thanks in advance

Stuart

 

[Lew]

Please forgive my terminology...
My new job means that I'll be supporting & enhancing a 4 year old
struts application.
It uses the JDK 1.3
It runs on jakarta-tomcat-4.1.24
It is deployed to remote laptops via Java Web Start (1.0.1 I think)
It connects to an Oracle 9i database.

Before I get too busy making the application better, I want to upgrade
the various versions

Does anyone know of any issues that I might face when I upgrade to
Java 5, Tomcat 5 and the latest Java Web Start?

Upgrade to Java 5 should be relatively painless, unless the 1.3-based code
uses "enum" or "assert" as identifiers. Even then you can compile code
"-target 1.3".

Java 1.4 came out five years ago. Java 5 came out two-and-a-half years ago.
Java 6 is already out, and has been for months. Why did you settle on a
version that is not the latest?

Tomcat should give no upgrade issues.

Web Start isn't dependent on the Java version. Au contraire you can set it up
to ensure the client has any particular version the program needs.

 

[Roedy Green]

Does anyone know of any issues that I might face when I upgrade to
Java 5, Tomcat 5 and the latest Java Web Start?

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/generics.html

That is the biggie, adding specific classes to all your containers and
making all your Comparators specific.

I use IntelliJ Idea. It will convert all my loops to the new for:each
form with a single click.

IntelliJ flushes out all sorts of bugs and questionable code, e.g.
code that does not do anything. Chances are you thought it did.