From: "Glenn Proctor" <glenn@ebi.ac.uk>
Date: September 29, 2006 2:02:36 AM CDT
To: ensembl-dev@ebi.ac.uk
Subject: [ensembl-dev] The future of EnsJ
Reply-To: ensembl-dev@ebi.ac.uk
Dear Ensembl Developers
Some of you may recall that I announced that we are scaling down our
ability to continue to develop and support the Ensj, the Java API
to Ensembl.
While several people kindly volunteered to help maintain parts of
Ensj,
no-one was able to commit to the kind of effort that would maintain
it as
a viable long-term solution.
So it is with a great deal of regret that I have to announce that
Ensj will
no longer be publically available as of the December release of
Ensembl,
release 42.
We will do our best to support it until then, however internally we
need to
focus our efforts on the Perl API and tools, so any Ensj-support
will be
provided on a best-efforts basis only.
We have taken the decision to withdraw Ensj completely rather than
keeping
it in hibernation as the latter option would quickly result in
increasing
incompatibilities between Ensj and future changes to the Ensembl
schema,
which would cause headaches for everyone involved.
We are doing this with great regret. It has not been an easy
decision to make.
I would like to extend my thanks to Craig Melsopp, the lead
developer of
Ensj, as well as to all of you who have used, supported and
contributed to
it over the last few years.
The Ensembl Perl API will be unaffected by these changes, and we have
a complete commitment to its maintenance as this is the main access
route in-house. I would encourage those of you who are still using
Ensj to
consider switching to the Perl API - you will find that much of the
Perl API
structure is similar to what you're used to with Ensj.
Information, documentation, and a tutorial on the Perl API can be
found at
http://www.ensembl.org/info/software/core/index.html
Regards
Glenn Proctor
Core team leader
Ensembl