a case for reconsidering JEP 398: Deprecate the Applet API for Removal

[mark.yagnatinsky at barclays.com]

Not sure what the proper etiquette for this list is, hope someone will tell me if I'm breaking any rules.

I'd like to make an argument against deprecating the applet API for removal.
Namely, it used to be a common practice to write Swing apps in such a way that they can run either as an applet, or as a desktop application.
There are thus all sorts of nice little jars floating around the web, which remain perfectly usable as desktop applications today,
but would suddenly stop working on newer JDKs because they happen to have the magic words "extends Applet".
(For instance, this one I've used personally that would probably break: http://www.science.smith.edu/~jorourke/books/CompGeom/CompGeom.html)
These are often un-maintained so it's probably unrealistic to expect all of them to be "fixed".

Thus I propose that rather than removing the API's outright, one of the following options can be taken:

Option 1: do nothing: keep applets deprecated, but not for removal, and eventually stop testing or maintaining the relevant code.

Option 2: remove the bulk of the implementation, leaving just enough so that code that mentions the applet AIP can compile and run successfully.
This is a little bit tricky, in that you have to figure out what counts as a "workable stub".
For instance, the applet constructor can't be changed to unconditionally throw an exception since the "extends Applet" trick mentioned above results
in calling that constructor even when running as a desktop app.

That's my two cents.

Thanks,
Mark.

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