The subject of moving to JRE 6 arose again in a conversation I had
with Mark Fortner.

What is the current situation with Mac operating systems and any
continued reliance on JRE5?

Regards

Bob

On 24 July 2009 10:01, Linus Tolke <[email protected]> wrote:
> OK. Bob!
> With this reasoning I will revert the decision.
> I will continue build the 0.29.1 through 0.30 releases using the Java5
> compiler and all checked in code needs to be Java5 code.
>         /Linus
>
> 2009/7/24 Bob Tarling <[email protected]>
>>
>> Moving to Java 5 gave us much needed language features to improve our
>> code. New language features don't come with Java 6.
>>
>> Where Java6 may give performance improvements with the existing API
>> then a user can switch to using that of their own choice.
>>
>> The only API feature I think I was curious of was the JTree. I think
>> this has been improved and we have occasional bug reports due to
>> strange tree behaviour of the explorer due to the standard Java JTree
>> (control-click and then drag of multiple items is difficult). I was
>> curious to see if that had been improved.
>>
>> Within GEF I followed a period of offering full Java1.3 support but
>> including Java1.4 features (n particular mousewheel support to scroll
>> diagram). I did this by compiling with Java1.4 JDK (but target set to
>> Java1.3 during compile). Any source code that I knew to be calling
>> Java1.4 API I placed within an if block that tested the JRE at runtime
>> was appropriate before making the call. That worked fine but does
>> include the danger of accidentally including new API features by
>> accident.
>>
>> I'd suggest we leave things for the time being and wait for an
>> argument from a developer who specifically needs a new API method. We
>> can keep our rules on EOSL a little looser to give ourselves the
>> option to drop support for a specific Java release at any time of our
>> choosing once Sun support has ended but we can make that decision of
>> exactly when for ourselves.
>>
>> When we need to do this we could follow a slightly better method than
>> I did for GEF. As ArgoUML splits into more smaller components we could
>> have alternative components loaded based on JRE at runtime. e.g. Load
>> the Java6 based explorer component only if runtime is Java6 or above
>> otherwise load the Java5 based explorer component. That removes the
>> danger that was possible with GEF as each component is either built
>> with Java5 or Java6 JDK with no change of target.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Bob.
>>
>> 2009/7/23 Linus Tolke <[email protected]>:
>> > Hello Jan!
>> > For the past years, we have used the policy to not provide new versions
>> > of
>> > ArgoUML that runs on JRE's no longer supported by Sun (i.e. that EOSL or
>> > EOL). This is allowing us to move forward in step with the oldest
>> > Sun-version. EOL for Java1.4 was the biggest step in this because it
>> > meant
>> > that we could start using Generics and Annotations.
>> >         /Linus
>> >
>> > 2009/7/23 Jan Barnholt <[email protected]>
>> >>
>> >> On 24/7/09 5:51 AM, Linus Tolke wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Note that we could still build the Windows and tar releases with
>> >> > Java6
>> >> > as long as we build specific Mac 32-bit releases using Java5 but that
>> >> > would complicate the build process a little.
>> >>
>> >> Hmm, but what's the point if you couldn't use any Java6 features anyway
>> >> because
>> >> they would break the Mac/Java5 build..?
>> >>
>> >> Not sure about how switching Java versions was handled in the past,
>> >> neither how
>> >> big the Mac user base is anyway - but given the fact that ArgoUML is
>> >> also
>> >> targeting academic users, where computers in general tend to stay
>> >> around
>> >> in labs
>> >> for quite a while, I was just wondering whether there are pressing
>> >> reasons
>> >> to
>> >> switch to Java 6 now..?
>> >>
>> >> Cheers,
>> >> Jan
>> >>
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> http://argouml.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=450&dsMessageId=2374985
>> >>
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>> >
>>
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