No, I’m not talking about this blog, which also went dead quiet during the last month ..

Back in december, after the release of the Flow-Engine (JFreeReport 0.9), I declared that the classic engine now is dead. I wanted to let it die directly after the release of version 0.8.8.

I dug its grave, called the carpenter to make a cheap coffin for it, went into the neighbours garden to steal some flowers (you can’t have a burial without flowers, right) and shoved earth on it.

But like every Zombie the thing came back from its grave. Bug-fix after bug-fix went into it. I’m quite sure somewhere in the swamps of Florida, there’s also a voodo witch (paid by Pentaho, of course :)) who casted her own dark magic to resurrect the thing. So finally it was back alive.

I’ve seen enough B- and C-Movies to know how to handle such a situation.

In April I’ve drawn the final card and ripped out the heart of the engine. Blood everywhere. Organs and meat flew around – just think of the worst horror movie you’ve seen, multiply it with the sum of evil of 7 years of unrestrained development and you could come near to what this monster was now. But the parts kept moving. They crawled and reunited – and finally reached the jars where I kept the replacement parts of the Flow-Engine. And in true horror I’ve seen how this old and undead monster ate the very heart of the Flow-Engine and implanted itself the renderer of that sacred child.

And now the classic engine is back! Stronger, bigger, and eviler than ever. It now shares major parts with the Flow-Engine, and if one grows, the other one will receive the good as well.

Watch out for the final version of Pentaho Reporting Classic 0.8.9 coming to a network node near you at the end of the month.