A small post from my side about 3th party packages. Be sure whenever you make us of an 3th party jar file:
- Check the license file
- Make use of libraries which are open source when possible.
- Make sure the libraries don’t have lots and lots of dependencies ( other 3th party libraries )
One example to think about is the creation of JSON. When generating JSON in xPages you can make use of the IBM package: com.ibm.commons.util.io.json.JsonJavaFactory. In the context of xPages this seems a logical step. But what happens if you want to reuse created classes in xPages in other projects for instance a native desktop app?
You could face the problem that the package is not available or not compatible with the jvm you are using but your custom classes are. In the worst case scenario you need to rewrite your code because you are adding another library. Therefore you will end up with 2 versions of the same code and as we all know.. that could be a pain in the .. to maintain.
In this case you could make use of the org.json.simple package. This package is opensource and makes use of the apache licens. So go fetch a copy of this great json library and start working with it!