matthiasblaesing commented on PR #4795: URL: https://github.com/apache/netbeans/pull/4795#issuecomment-1516796669
I'll assume good faith on behalf of the JDK developers, I also assume, that know what they are doing. It is a conscious decision on behalf of OpenJDK not to go down the "backporting" compiler route and also to use JDK-1 features in the javac. That can be questioned and criticized and I'd like to see a different decision, but it is not the case. The onset of "frgaal" now is, that a fork of javac can accomplish what "plain" javac failed to do: A backporting javac, that can run on old versions of java. This is all noble, but how high is the bus-factor of this? For "plain" javac I don't see it going anytime soon. Even if Oracle would drop OpenJDK today, there are multiple companies backing the development, which already demonstrated, that they take over where Oracle drops the ball (Oracle tried to monetize their OpenJDK build and utterly failed as multiple vendors stood up to provide builds). What is more, I'm pissed how this was brought in. The base PR, that brought the possibility for this, was advertised as an option to test nbjavac (turns out, that might have not been the whole truth). In that PR I pointed out, that there are problems, that make this not suitable for inclusion as a general solution (one such example is violating the contract for properties). I also pointed out, that the JDK has a mechanism to patch its javac with some handwaving, that was rejected. From my POV the build system of NetBeans is complex enough without having to consider a wild mix of java compilers. > In a world we have dependencies at our hands, would it be still an issue ? How many people here are qualified to work on the java compiler and how many of this (I suspect) small group are willing to do it. And for how long? -- This is an automated message from the Apache Git Service. To respond to the message, please log on to GitHub and use the URL above to go to the specific comment. To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For queries about this service, please contact Infrastructure at: [email protected] --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] For further information about the NetBeans mailing lists, visit: https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/NETBEANS/Mailing+lists
