[gwt-contrib] Re: GWT 2 Roadmap as it applies to future deprecations
My 2 cents: We also have quite a few projects here based on GWT, still running DevMode on Java 1.8 I am afraid. Like everyone else sharing the same fate, we are struggling to upgrade to Java 11 which seems to be the next sensible move. Yet, the world is being indirectly and inevitably forced to embrace the transformation challenge, as relevant tools and integrations have already switched to Java 11 (e.g. Jenkins). In our experience, when using DevMode, it is best to run simpler variants of the actual UI apps, or keep them as simple as possible so that they can still run on Jetty even with an altered classpath. On Monday, 2 January 2023 at 13:10:59 UTC hthdjeu...@googlemail.com wrote: > We have a project here that uses GWT for all its web UI and is still > running Java 1.8. The SAP JVM 8 will be supported at least until 2030. > According to > https://newrelic.com/resources/report/2022-state-of-java-ecosystem in > April 2022 still close to half of the projects (46%) were using Java 1.8. > We have made some efforts to move to 11 and 17 and succeeded to the degree > that we have the build pipelines running for those two new LTS versions > using their respective JDKs to compile, have our Docker images ready and > can run the solution with both these new Java LTS releases. But this took a > few months, and I find it very likely that from the 46% of the projects not > all have the resources to invest into the migration. If only half of them > do, we're still at those ~25% that Colin already sampled from the responses > on this thread who will continue to use 1.8 for some time to come. > > Still, we're not yet decided on making the move. Even when using the > sapmachine.io flavors of the new JDKs we will lose some beloved features > we get from SAP JVM 8, among them a really neat profiler that integrates > nicely with Eclipse, as well as reversible on-the-fly debugging. The only > immediate incentive for a migration to 17 could be the performance > improvements we measure (depending on the type of workload an average > improvement by 10-20%), whereas language features or the new GCs (which > frankly were a bit disappointing for our parallelizing workloads) are not > in such high demand in our case. > > Ironically, since we live off a fork of the GWT project to already > incorporate two PRs we've made into our production, Java 1.8 is still > required to run the GWT build... > > The compatibility issues raised here are of course all very valid. Some > things seem reasonably easy to deal with (see, e.g., > https://github.com/gwtproject/gwt/pull/9791). Other cases, some of which > discussed here, too, such as potentially giving up the classic DevMode in a > future release, and removing support for old IE versions in the current > 2.10 release, may break existing projects for sure. The same applies for > potential changes that don't deal "only" with bumping versions of > dependencies but that try to improve aspects of GWT at the expense of what > I would call minor compatibility glitches (see the discussion here: > https://github.com/gwtproject/gwt/pull/9779). > > With some of these things I find it a problem that GWT doesn't seem to > have a clearly defined "set of contracts" based on which "backward > compatibility" could be defined. There are, e.g., things that for technical > reasons have been made "protected" in non-final classes or public in other > classes that probably shouldn't count as part of the "GWT contract." Yet, > with enough projects out there in the wild there may be a few that exploit > exactly those elements and hence would break in case of changes in those > areas. Disallowing any change in any of these areas, however, may box GWT > in this compatibility trap forever. And having to postponse such changes to > releases that will break massively in other areas and hence may cause > disruption and lack of adoption for a fair share of GWT-based projects > doesn't seem ideal to me, either. > > Maybe we should take away from these challenges that it would be a good > thing going forward to be more explicit abut which parts of GWT are > contract and which ones are not; and those latter ones we then should be > able to change incompatibly without worrying about adopters. > On Thursday, August 4, 2022 at 5:05:45 AM UTC+2 nilo...@gmail.com wrote: > >> >> >> If there’s one thing that GWT has tried to be consistent about, it is >> retaining support for technologies past their “best by” dates. This is a >> sore point from time to time, as it makes the tooling feel dated even right >> after a release, but it has some specific advantages with regards to >> enabling projects that are otherwise in maintenance mode to still be able >> to upgrade to a newer version. Similarly, GWT has traditionally only >> supported the current release, with no fixes backported, due to the extra >> work that would need to be done in testing, backporting, etc. >> >> >> To
[gwt-contrib] Re: GWT 2 Roadmap as it applies to future deprecations
We have a project here that uses GWT for all its web UI and is still running Java 1.8. The SAP JVM 8 will be supported at least until 2030. According to https://newrelic.com/resources/report/2022-state-of-java-ecosystem in April 2022 still close to half of the projects (46%) were using Java 1.8. We have made some efforts to move to 11 and 17 and succeeded to the degree that we have the build pipelines running for those two new LTS versions using their respective JDKs to compile, have our Docker images ready and can run the solution with both these new Java LTS releases. But this took a few months, and I find it very likely that from the 46% of the projects not all have the resources to invest into the migration. If only half of them do, we're still at those ~25% that Colin already sampled from the responses on this thread who will continue to use 1.8 for some time to come. Still, we're not yet decided on making the move. Even when using the sapmachine.io flavors of the new JDKs we will lose some beloved features we get from SAP JVM 8, among them a really neat profiler that integrates nicely with Eclipse, as well as reversible on-the-fly debugging. The only immediate incentive for a migration to 17 could be the performance improvements we measure (depending on the type of workload an average improvement by 10-20%), whereas language features or the new GCs (which frankly were a bit disappointing for our parallelizing workloads) are not in such high demand in our case. Ironically, since we live off a fork of the GWT project to already incorporate two PRs we've made into our production, Java 1.8 is still required to run the GWT build... The compatibility issues raised here are of course all very valid. Some things seem reasonably easy to deal with (see, e.g., https://github.com/gwtproject/gwt/pull/9791). Other cases, some of which discussed here, too, such as potentially giving up the classic DevMode in a future release, and removing support for old IE versions in the current 2.10 release, may break existing projects for sure. The same applies for potential changes that don't deal "only" with bumping versions of dependencies but that try to improve aspects of GWT at the expense of what I would call minor compatibility glitches (see the discussion here: https://github.com/gwtproject/gwt/pull/9779). With some of these things I find it a problem that GWT doesn't seem to have a clearly defined "set of contracts" based on which "backward compatibility" could be defined. There are, e.g., things that for technical reasons have been made "protected" in non-final classes or public in other classes that probably shouldn't count as part of the "GWT contract." Yet, with enough projects out there in the wild there may be a few that exploit exactly those elements and hence would break in case of changes in those areas. Disallowing any change in any of these areas, however, may box GWT in this compatibility trap forever. And having to postponse such changes to releases that will break massively in other areas and hence may cause disruption and lack of adoption for a fair share of GWT-based projects doesn't seem ideal to me, either. Maybe we should take away from these challenges that it would be a good thing going forward to be more explicit abut which parts of GWT are contract and which ones are not; and those latter ones we then should be able to change incompatibly without worrying about adopters. On Thursday, August 4, 2022 at 5:05:45 AM UTC+2 nilo...@gmail.com wrote: > > > If there’s one thing that GWT has tried to be consistent about, it is > retaining support for technologies past their “best by” dates. This is a > sore point from time to time, as it makes the tooling feel dated even right > after a release, but it has some specific advantages with regards to > enabling projects that are otherwise in maintenance mode to still be able > to upgrade to a newer version. Similarly, GWT has traditionally only > supported the current release, with no fixes backported, due to the extra > work that would need to be done in testing, backporting, etc. > > > To get stuck on a tangent before even reaching the point of this post, > this is part of the reason that each of the GWT modules which previously > lived in gwt-user.jar is getting its own git repo, and being released as > its own pace, separate from the GWT compiler and its neighbors (and also > separate from J2CL, with tests to ensure it can work with both toolkits). > Migrating to a specific version of one of those modules might require some > code changes be made to a project, but is intended to uncouple changes to > that project from changes made to either J2CL or GWT2 toolchains. > > GWT 2.10 has been released, with a few important changes that border on > breaking - the groupId has changed from com.google.gwt to org.gwtproject, > Jetty was updated after languishing for years, and IE 8, 9, and 10
