Thanks for the heads-up. There's only 3 days remaining until the formal end
of this vote, and so far it seems conclusively in favor of dropping Java 7.

On Thu, Jan 4, 2018 at 4:35 PM Ben Sidhom <[email protected]> wrote:

> Flink will be dropping Java 7 support in 1.5.0 (Java 8 is required for
> Scala 2.12+): https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/FLINK-5005. This is
> another bump in favor of setting Java 8 as the project default. We'll
> eventually need to switch the Flink runner if we want it to stay up to date.
>
> On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 2:40 PM, Eugene Kirpichov <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Oh, sorry for the misunderstanding: I didn't mean to suggest to actually
>> use confidence intervals, I added that information just as a curiosity. I
>> agree that we should make the decision based on the explicit % of votes.
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 4:17 PM Kenneth Knowles <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> -user list for this
>>>
>>> FWIW confidence intervals were not mentioned before the poll was
>>> launched, but in fact it was pretty explicitly just votes <= 5%.
>>>
>>> If we require that the 95% confidence interval falls under 5% we either
>>> need 2000 respondents (not going to happen) at current proportions or for a
>>> more reasonable 300 respondents the actual proportion would be ~2.3% which
>>> is 7 votes, while we already have 9 votes. In other words, the poll is
>>> already effectively done if that is the standard.
>>>
>>> But I would favor tilting the bias the other way. I'm not just trying to
>>> make the data fit the desired conclusion. If the original proposal had
>>> talked about confidence intervals, or the implied result that we keep Java
>>> 7 support for 3% of responses (out of expected ~500 or less) I would have
>>> said the balance was off.
>>>
>>> Kenn
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 9:00 AM, Eugene Kirpichov <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Intermediate update: right now it's 219 votes on Twitter (and 0 on this
>>>> thread: seems that people find Twitter a more convenient medium!), with 96%
>>>> who are either on Java 8 or can easily switch, vs. 4% who can not easily
>>>> switch.
>>>>
>>>> Using a proportion confidence interval calculator, so far we're looking
>>>> at between 1.9 and 7.7% of users (at 95% confidence) needing Java 7 support
>>>> :)
>>>>
>>>> Willing users can help gather more votes by RT'ing the poll or chiming
>>>> in on this thread!
>>>>
>>>> So: for now we don't yet have enough confidence that Java 7 support can
>>>> be dropped from the SDK (to remind, we'll conclude the vote on January 7th;
>>>> since people so overwhelmingly vote on Twitter, we may consider doing 3
>>>> more rounds of the same poll?..), however:
>>>> - It may be enough confidence to resolve to *build* the Beam SDK using
>>>> JDK8 (at Java 7 source language level), which is something +Ismaël
>>>> Mejía <[email protected]> and +Daniel Oliveira <[email protected]> 
>>>> once
>>>> requested as part of building Java 9 support. I suspect that the sets
>>>> "users who need to build their own Beam SDK" and "users who can not upgrade
>>>> to Java 8" have a vanishingly small intersection.
>>>> - Then, we may consider also start building *tests* at Java 8 language
>>>> level, which will give the bulk of the benefit of encouraging
>>>> Java8-friendly APIs.
>>>> Thoughts on the above?
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 6:22 PM Eugene Kirpichov <[email protected]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> A Twitter poll has been sent out too
>>>>> https://twitter.com/ApacheBeam/status/938926195910905857
>>>>> However, due to limitations of Twitter it can only be open for 7 days.
>>>>> I encourage people who are late to the poll to comment on this thread
>>>>> instead.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 3:50 PM Eugene Kirpichov <[email protected]>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Followup: we would like to keep this poll open for 2 weeks, however
>>>>>> some people have expressed concern that this is too short.
>>>>>> Let us keep this poll open for 1 month starting today. So far the
>>>>>> agreed-upon decision has been to move forward with the plan if fewer than
>>>>>> 5% of all respondents choose option 3.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Dec 7, 2017 at 3:48 PM Eugene Kirpichov <[email protected]>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This is a follow-up on a previous similar thread
>>>>>>> https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/2e1890c62d9f022f09b20e9f12f130fe9f1042e391979087f725d2e0@%3Cuser.beam.apache.org%3E
>>>>>>>  in
>>>>>>> which the community consistently expressed support for transitioning 
>>>>>>> Beam
>>>>>>> Java to Java8-only.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Now that the release of Beam 2.2.0 has completed, we are considering
>>>>>>> performing this change specifically in the immediate next release: Beam
>>>>>>> 2.3.0, i.e. dropping support for Java 7 without a bump in the major 
>>>>>>> version
>>>>>>> of Beam.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The reasons for switching to Java 8 in general are considered in the
>>>>>>> thread above.
>>>>>>> The reasons in favor of making the switch in Beam 2.3.0 are as
>>>>>>> follows:
>>>>>>> - It is believed that usage of Java 7 in production is already
>>>>>>> vanishingly small.
>>>>>>> - Since Java 7 has not been receiving even security updates for
>>>>>>> years, helping perpetuate its usage would be a bad idea
>>>>>>> - A major version bump is a major step and would likely happen only
>>>>>>> after a large number of other major changes in Beam accumulate - i.e. 
>>>>>>> many
>>>>>>> months. Maintaining Java 7 compatibility for that long would have costs,
>>>>>>> including the awkward possibility of switching Beam to Java 8 after Java
>>>>>>> 8's end of life (September 2018 AFAIK)
>>>>>>> - Updating to Java 8 would lead to Beam more quickly gaining more
>>>>>>> Java8-friendly APIs, because Beam SDK authors and contributors would 
>>>>>>> have
>>>>>>> more liberty, more responsibility and more experience with working in 
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> context of Java8. Delaying until Beam 3.0 would delay this as well.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> With that in mind, we'd like to poll the Beam community to gather
>>>>>>> information about usage of Java 7 and Java 8 in production. Please vote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Option 1. I am already using only Java 8+ for building my production
>>>>>>> Beam code.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Option 2. I am using Java 7 for building my production Beam code,
>>>>>>> but I would have no trouble with the switch to Java 8 [e.g. my 
>>>>>>> transition
>>>>>>> to Java 8 would be easy and/or I don't expect that I'll have strong 
>>>>>>> reasons
>>>>>>> to upgrade to Beam 2.3 anyway].
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Option 3. I am using Java 7 for building my production Beam code,
>>>>>>> and dropping Java 7 would be a blocker or hindrance to adopting the new
>>>>>>> release for me [e.g. I expect that I'll have strong reasons to update to
>>>>>>> Beam 2.3, but I expect that it will be difficult because of lack of 
>>>>>>> Java 7
>>>>>>> support]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>
>
>
> --
> -Ben
>

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