From: Roland.Schemers@Eng (Roland Schemers)
Message-Id: <199802150514.VAA10400@crypto.eng.sun.com>
Subject: Re: Why the difference
To: fp65@dial.pipex.com (Danny Mr)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 21:14:24 -0800 (PST)
In-Reply-To: <199802141300.FAA09598@java1.javasoft.com> from "Danny Mr" at Feb 14, 98 01:27:13 pm
> I noticed a difference between the way Cipher classes are implemented and
> messageDigest and signer.
>
> Basically why do the digest and signer classses inherit from their
> respective Spis rather than have a reference like Cipher. The latter
> would seem much cleaner.
Simple answer:
Backward compatibility with JDK 1.1.
The only way to separate the api/spi's in 1.1 and not break
compatibility was to make the API classes extend the SPI.
We had a chance to do it the right way in JCE.
thanks, roland