Repeating Annotations and backwards compatibility

[Bill Shannon]

Remi Forax wrote on 09/13/2012 02:22 PM:
> On 09/13/2012 06:04 PM, Paul Benedict wrote:
>> I just read the archives and find that "looking through" the grouping
>> annotation is awkward. However, I also agree with Joel that we "shouldn't
>> make the source-to-reflection gap bigger."
> 
> While I may agree with this if it's free, the main issue is that the current
> design come with a price,
> you can retrofit repeated annotations and their container only if they are
> declared in the same library
> (at least under the control of the same group of people).
> 
> I've seen code to add a container annotation to javax.jws.WebService so I
> suppose that
> several projects have come along the same path for annotations that already
> exist in Java SE/EE world.

If there's existing Java EE annotations that need new container annotations,
now would be a good time to bring that up with the corresponding spec lead!

I wouldn't have expected @WebService to be one of those.  Does someone want
to expose a single class as multiple web services?  Isn't a workaround to
just create some trivial subclasses with new annotations?