Hi All,
On 21/10/2010 06:34, Jeremias Maerki wrote:
I agree its time to move to 1.5 but its too early for 1.6. As Jeremias
said what are the benefits of 1.6 over 1.5? Better performing JVM is the
key improvement. If we compile on 1.5 people can still get this benefit
by running on 1.6.
We have to support a number of cross platform environments and most are
stuck with 1.5. If we raise the bar to 1.6 then I believe we will be
turning away a lot of potential users.
Thanks,
Chris
By now, I agree that Java 1.4 as a minimum requirement doesn't make much
sense anymore. We have given people enough of a transition period. Many
Apache projects including many Commons components and also PDFBox have
moved to Java 1.5 in the meantime, raising the bar for people still
lagging behind in their environment.
What I don't support is jumping to Java 6 just now. Most Apache projects
have moved from 1.4 to 1.5 but not necessarily 6. Platform support for 6
is not yet as good as for 1.5. Plus I'd like to hear why 6 is supposed
to be technically better for XML Graphics (on the class library level,
not the JVM). A few new convenience methods alone don't warrant the jump
and the risk to alienate certain users.
On 20.10.2010 20:53:28 Vincent Hennebert wrote:
Hi,
The topic has already been mentioned several times in the past, at least
in the FOP area. The latest discussion we had was in August 2009:
http://markmail.org/message/y7iwptehnzujcuxm
It was decided then to release FOP 1.0 with Java 1.4 support, and do
a user community poll shortly afterwards.
More than a year has passed now and I’d like to re-visit that topic,
with two modifications:
• make the decision at the project level. Homogenizing things a bit
wouldn’t hurt IMO. Specifically, Commons and FOP Trunk would switch to
1.5 now, Batik would switch after the 1.8 release (which is about to
happen IIUC).
• I’m not sure that a poll still is necessary. It’s been almost 2 years
now that Java 1.4 has reached end of life. We are in the same
situation as when we dropped support for Java 1.3.
Moreover, I think sticking to 1.4 is a growing impediment to the
development of the project. Simon ran into trouble when releasing 1.0:
http://markmail.org/message/ivlwk2dcmuk25woy
Proper internationalization can only be achieved starting from 1.5:
http://markmail.org/message/6n2w5tefarqp76iv
We recently upgraded Checkstyle to version 5.1 in FOP and that requires
Java 1.5.
Using retroweaving tools is doable but adds complexity to the build and
is a hassle that I don’t think we can live with due to our limited
resources.
I think it’s time to move on. If anybody really feels that a user poll
still is necessary, please speak up now. Otherwise, just wait a few days
that I launch an official vote on this.
Thanks,
Vincent
Jeremias Maerki
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