Why is there no API to update the configuration file?

Question

It would be nice to be able to programmatically add/remove a JRE configuration in the deployment.properties, and be able to reorder the positions of the JREs in the list.
We run JWS to start our WebSphere custom thin client, running on the same IBM SDK that powers our WebSphere MT. I've conquered all those issues.
Because it is not a SUN JRE, it cannot be registered or auto-downloaded. As a result, we have to write some gnarly code to do the update and reorder.

Answer 1

Andy - All of us in this software industry know that
lots of things 'shouldn't matter', however I've
painfully learned that there IS a difference between
theory and practice.
In my case, being tied to IBM SDK 1.3.1 because of
the WebSphere appserver is like an anchor. First, I
can' run our client on a SUN JRE because IBM carries
a lot of proprietary baggage (CORBA, native
libraries, etc). Second, the SUN autodownload cannot
recognize our JRE by the 'j2se version' 1.3.1. Third,
Java Web Start won't automatically recognize the our
foreign JRE. first, specifying version="1.3.1" without an auto download address (href) is completely invalid, because in that case you are asking for any jre that implements the 1.3.1 java specification, and there is none.
>
Through testing and experimentation, I found that if
our installer manually configures the javaws.cfg, to
locate the JRE first, and we don't provide an
autodownload URL (since its invalid anyway for our
JRE), then the JNLP & JWS will fall to the default
JRE at position 0 in the javaws.cfg.
the autodownload href would not be invalid if you actually post the autodownload bundles at that address, planty of people have done this.
This is why I made the request for positioning of the
JRE. positioning does not mater, unless as in your case, you provide inaccurate entries in the config file such that two different items claim to be the same thing.
>
But the real solution is to open up the strings on
the packaging for autodownloading of the JRE so that
ANY vendors java runtime could be recognized. Any vendors package can be regognised, and the entire source of the download servlet and installer is included in the samples directory of the jre.
a lot of traffic on this topic in Lopica, with many
open source solutions, but with each of these there
are problems.
With that much interest, can't this useful feature be
integrated with the SUN release?/Andy