[Help] Java Development Question

[Jay Canale]

Hello,
I am not sure if this is the right forum to post this, so I am sorry if
it isn't.

I am knew to java software development using the Sun Java plugins. My
company has released a beta version of some software that is targeted for
the 1.5 version of the java plugin. A company who is beta testing the
software is having trouble with the fact that their software that runs in
the 1.4.0_02 version of the plugin does not work with the 1.5.
Now my question is how do we as a company handle this? Should we target
the software for the 1.4? This company is only a small percentage of the
people who will use the software. Shouldn't the 1.4 software work with the
1.5? Or what will happen to our 1.5 software when the plugin goes up to 1.6
or version 2?

What should we do?

Jay

 

[Malte]

Hello,
I am not sure if this is the right forum to post this, so I am sorry if
it isn't.

I am knew to java software development using the Sun Java plugins. My
company has released a beta version of some software that is targeted for
the 1.5 version of the java plugin. A company who is beta testing the
software is having trouble with the fact that their software that runs in
the 1.4.0_02 version of the plugin does not work with the 1.5.
Now my question is how do we as a company handle this? Should we target
the software for the 1.4? This company is only a small percentage of the
people who will use the software. Shouldn't the 1.4 software work with the
1.5? Or what will happen to our 1.5 software when the plugin goes up to 1.6
or version 2?

What should we do?

Jay

Proper use of OO paradigms should help a lot. So would a nice versioning
system.

 

[enrique]

If it were me, I would do what I could afford and if there's money to
be made in making it 1.4-compatible. I guess the question in my mind
is what were the compelling reasons for standardizing on 1.5? Wouldn't
it be better to support as many versions as possible, without
maintaining more than one code base?