On serializability

[Matt Sicker <bo...@gmail.com>]

I think it's great to make things Serializable as it helps move objects
around. However, we should try to come up with some stable serialization
formats. I don't know how many times I've had to diagnose cache-related
problems due to serialization formats changing. Personally, I use a
serialization pattern based on Externalizable and I always end the object
stream with a boolean to indicate whether or not there is more data
available (i.e., extended versions). I'm not sure how well this would work
in a public API, but it's worked rather well in practice so far in
preventing incompatible class errors and the like.

-- 
Matt Sicker <bo...@gmail.com>