On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 12:01 PM Benjamin Marwell <bmarw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Why 17? 11 is often earlier EOL'd than 8 and 17, so I see absolutely > no advantage of going to 11: > The advantage of going with 11 instead of 17 is that at least 2 really big tech companies I could name (and who you can probably guess from my linked in) have only recently completed their own migration to Java 11. At least one of those two companies might still employ a PMC member (though I haven't checked post-layoffs), maybe more than one. Both have actively supported Maven development over the years, though that support ebbs and flows depending on corporate priorities. I get the impression that folks who haven't worked in such large mono-repos aren't aware of just how big a multi-year effort it is to move a repo like that onto a new JDK version. And that's just the VM, even before you allow devs to change the language level and start using the new features and libraries. That's just the two really big mono-repos I have personally worked in. I'm willing to bet that some other big Java shops are in similar positions. Switching back and forth between JDKs for open source development is doable but an unnecessary hassle. I've done it before, but even switching from JDK 8 to 11 is an extra paper cut. It kills time every time spotless fails simply because I'm using Java 8 instead of 11. Most importantly, it will be even harder to sell management on the benefit of spending developer time on Maven 4 development, if it isn't suitable for that company's own open source projects which, last I checked, were still on Java 8. (OK, I just spot checked and the first one I looked at is in fact still compiling for Java *1.7*, probably because that's where their customers are). I'm thinking back to the projects I had to justify to management a few years and one company back, and it definitely would have been harder then if I had to tell them what we were contributing would only work on Java 11 or later. Maybe today I could sell them on Java 11 (or maybe not, if they aren't paying attention to Maven at all any more) but Java 17 would be a non-starter. They might prefer to spend their resources on a build tool they own, or maybe just not spend the dev hours at all. tldr: every uptick in version requirements bleeds that many more contributors out of the pool. -- Elliotte Rusty Harold elh...@ibiblio.org --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@maven.apache.org For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@maven.apache.org
