Here's another perspective: the OracleLabs organization works on GraalVM ( http://graalvm.org <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__graalvm.org&d=DwMFaQ&c=RoP1YumCXCgaWHvlZYR8PZh8Bv7qIrMUB65eapI_JnE&r=mbDljLosYPdmZgPL2qzX-pjBv_4xnxXEWOeG1_Zdqm8&m=2-ZVlDj4isV1uka5DuIMNwvoo8Q5z4zOHri4eYbQfr0&s=3GKXfaw1Aqfcpkfsk86NgO55k9Pe5_Ek6YD5JaMH57w&e=>), which is not only the fastest virtual machine on the planet, but also the most toolable one. There are two tools built on top NetBeans in support of GraalVM: VisualVM and Ideal Graph Visualizer. When you download GraalVM, you also download the tools and the tools are supposed to run on the same GraalVM.
While OracleLabs supports early adopters and makes sure the GraalVM technologies work with latest JDK - e.g. JDK11, the aim is also to enlarge the range of users by supporting JDK8. There are still many customers that aren't ready to switch to the latest JDK and so they stick with older versions. That is why the official download of GraalVM is based on JDK8. Should the Apache NetBeans project drop support for JDK8, the OracleLabs contributors will no longer be able to contribute to its development. To avoid such an unfortunate situation, it would make sense for the community to continue to support the building and running of NetBeans on top of JDK8. Thanks, Gj On Tue, Aug 21, 2018 at 7:30 AM, Jan Lahoda <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, > > While it might be OK for the Java support to require e.g. (runtime) JDK 11 > (but I am not saying it is OK), I suspect it may not be so OK yet for e.g. > the PHP IDE, or platform applications, as Svata says. > > Also changing the build scripts to support JDK 9+ is not a trivial task (it > is surely not a single line in Travis configuration, or something like > that). Like, for example, I believe there are still compilations in NB that > use -source < 6, which is not supported by JDK 9. Most, but not all, of > them should be easy to get rid of, but that's a work someone needs to do. > > So, to me personally, if someone can propose a patch that would build NB on > JDK 10/11 using --release 8 (not allowing JDK 8 for build at all, building > just with JDK 10/11, to keep things simple), that'd be great, but I myself > may not get to that in a near future. For me, it is more acceptable to say > that folks working on/building NetBeans must use a specific JDK, or a > limited ranged of JDKs, than to say that the users must use a specific JDK. > > I would not see supporting JDK 8 as a runtime platform to be "backward > minded". It feels more responsible to not drop support for an older JDK > without a very good reason. > > Jan > > On Sun, Aug 19, 2018 at 9:15 PM, William L. Thomson Jr. <[email protected] > > > wrote: > > > On Sun, 19 Aug 2018 15:07:38 -0400 > > "William L. Thomson Jr." <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > This came up on PR-572 > > > https://github.com/apache/incubator-netbeans/pull/572 > > > > Since the PR is locked I cannot comment. The ONLY reason such change > > breaks is the Travis-CI build is run under 1.8 ONLY[1]. It seems other > > JDKs available under Travis are being ignored[2]. Such that if NB build > > on Travis used JDK 11 it would fail as well... It may also fail with > > JDK 9 or JDK 10. Not sure why Travis builds do not test under those > > newer JDKs and only builds using Java 8. > > > > JDK 11 release is next month. JDK 10 is current. If there was a JDK 10 > > job on Travis. That PR fix would likely have passed. Given it is a > > valid change under JDK 10, as well as 11. > > > > Its this holding onto legacy Java 8. We want more contributions to > > support an arch the contributor will never use or run. My interest is > > in current JDK and newer, not older. I submit changes for newer. But > > they are held back, because such changes MUST support older than newer. > > > > Is Netbeans forward or backward minded? > > > > 1. https://travis-ci.org/apache/incubator-netbeans/jobs/387221179/config > > 2. https://docs.travis-ci.com/user/languages/java/#using- > java-10-and-later > > > > > > -- > > William L. Thomson Jr. > > >
