On 29.05.2012 11:28, Fernando Cassia wrote:
> On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 5:50 AM, Rony G. Flatscher (Apache) <[email protected]
>> wrote:
>> If possible at all, the base line support should be Java 1.4 as long as
>> possible as there are still
>> quite a few Java deployments at that level (also 1.5) in the market
>> despite Sun/Oracle putting the
>> EOL death spell on Java 1.4 and 1.5
>>
> With OpenJDK available for 1.6 and 1.7, JDK 1.4 and 1.5 are dead as a dodo.
> Who will maintain legacy, non-open code?
>
> Plus, Java has good backwards compatibility, I have had no problem running
> apps there were created in the days of Java 1.4 with the latest OpenJDK
> 1.7... but that's just my limited experience on the matter....
Yes, the backward compatibility is great. And it is also great that you (and
many developers) are
able to take advantage of the latest JDKs (open or closed for that matter).
The problem is the other way round: shops that have no newer versions than 1.4
or 1.5
deployed/available to them are not able to take advantage of Java class|{es|
libraries} that got
compiled with class file structures higher than their version. Their jvm would
just bomb and inhibit
the execution/usage of Java classes that are not at their (or lower) level.
Therefore, as long as it
is feasible for the creators of Java class libraries to create the classfiles
to be deployable on
1.4 or 1.5, then they should do so in order to maximize the deployability of
their endeavors.
---rony
