[2.x] [DISCUSS] Java SE 6 as the minimum JDK level for Tuscany SCA 2.x

[Raymond Feng <en...@gmail.com>]

Hi,

We had a discussion before on which JDK level is required for Tuscany Java 
SCA 2.x. There is an announcement on InfoQ.com [1] that Sun's implementation 
of J2SE 5.0 reached its End of Service Life (EOSL) on November the 3rd 2009, 
which is the date of the final publicly available update of version 5.0 
(J2SE 5.0 Update 22). I think it's time to revisit this issue.

I think making JSE 6 as the minimum JDK level will greatly simplify Tuscany 
dependencies and make it possible to run core functions with just the JDK.

There are a bunch of javax packages available in JSE 6 (not in JSE 5), for 
example:
javax.xml.stream (StAX)
javax.xml.bind (JAXB)
javax.jws and javax.xml.ws (JAX-WS)
javax.script (Scripting APIs)

The link at [2] gives us an overview of what JSE 6 added.

The JDK requirement can be enforced using maven enforcer plugin.

[1] http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/11/java5_eosl
[2] http://java.sun.com/javase/6/features.jsp

Thanks,
Raymond
---
Raymond Feng
Apache Tuscany PMC Member: http://tuscany.apache.org
Co-author of Tuscany In Action (A book on Tuscany SCA): 
http://tuscanyinaction.com/
 

Re: [2.x] [DISCUSS] Java SE 6 as the minimum JDK level for Tuscany SCA 2.x

[ant elder <an...@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 9:08 AM, Mike Edwards
<mi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Raymond Feng wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> We had a discussion before on which JDK level is required for Tuscany Java
>> SCA 2.x. There is an announcement on InfoQ.com [1] that Sun's implementation
>> of J2SE 5.0 reached its End of Service Life (EOSL) on November the 3rd 2009,
>> which is the date of the final publicly available update of version 5.0
>> (J2SE 5.0 Update 22). I think it's time to revisit this issue.
>>
>> I think making JSE 6 as the minimum JDK level will greatly simplify
>> Tuscany dependencies and make it possible to run core functions with just
>> the JDK.
>>
>> There are a bunch of javax packages available in JSE 6 (not in JSE 5), for
>> example:
>> javax.xml.stream (StAX)
>> javax.xml.bind (JAXB)
>> javax.jws and javax.xml.ws (JAX-WS)
>> javax.script (Scripting APIs)
>>
>> The link at [2] gives us an overview of what JSE 6 added.
>>
>> The JDK requirement can be enforced using maven enforcer plugin.
>>
>> [1] http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/11/java5_eosl
>> [2] http://java.sun.com/javase/6/features.jsp
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Raymond
>> ---
>> Raymond Feng
>> Apache Tuscany PMC Member: http://tuscany.apache.org
>> Co-author of Tuscany In Action (A book on Tuscany SCA):
>> http://tuscanyinaction.com/
>>
>>
>>
> Raymond,
>
> This is a good question.
>
> Just a small personal perspective, I've been running Tuscany (and Eclipse
> and all the other Java tools I use) with the Sun JDK 6 for well over a year
> now and I rarely if ever use JDK 5.
>
> However, the question that we need to ask is what requiring JDK 6 will do to
> our users. The benefits to us as developers are surely second place to that.
>
> It has certainly been the experience of commercial vendors that many
> users/customers are relatively slow to move up to new versions of the JDK -
> but how much does that apply to an open source project such as Tuscany?  One
> question that must be asked is whether associated tools will have problems
> if we require JDK 6.
>
> Now, I know from personal experience that Eclipse is fine with JDK 6, but
> there are a lot of other tools that people may be using.
>
> I suppose that one route forward here is to simply pose the question on the
> user mailing list and have an associated page on the website, to make as
> many people as possible aware that we are contemplating this change.  Let's
> see if any users have a problem with leaving JDK 5 behind...
>
>
> Yours,  Mike.
>
>
>

We've discussed this a couple of times in the past on the mailing list
and from what I remember the main conclusions were:

- people will still be using JDK5 well after the EOSL
- theres no need to "require" JDK 6 as there are no APIs we need which
are only in JDK6 ant not in JDK5

Tuscany already runs fine on both, and when using JDK6 you dont need
all the extra dependencies so its really about packaging and
distribution, we could make some JDK6 only artifacts, I've already
started that with the tuscany-base jar which expects jdk6 and needs no
other dependencies (though it would work fine with JDK5 + extra
dependencies).

We're not going to gain users by saying Tuscany doesn't work on JDK5
and it might loses some.

   ...ant

Re: [2.x] [DISCUSS] Java SE 6 as the minimum JDK level for Tuscany SCA 2.x

[Mike Edwards <mi...@gmail.com>]

Raymond Feng wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> We had a discussion before on which JDK level is required for Tuscany 
> Java SCA 2.x. There is an announcement on InfoQ.com [1] that Sun's 
> implementation of J2SE 5.0 reached its End of Service Life (EOSL) on 
> November the 3rd 2009, which is the date of the final publicly available 
> update of version 5.0 (J2SE 5.0 Update 22). I think it's time to revisit 
> this issue.
> 
> I think making JSE 6 as the minimum JDK level will greatly simplify 
> Tuscany dependencies and make it possible to run core functions with 
> just the JDK.
> 
> There are a bunch of javax packages available in JSE 6 (not in JSE 5), 
> for example:
> javax.xml.stream (StAX)
> javax.xml.bind (JAXB)
> javax.jws and javax.xml.ws (JAX-WS)
> javax.script (Scripting APIs)
> 
> The link at [2] gives us an overview of what JSE 6 added.
> 
> The JDK requirement can be enforced using maven enforcer plugin.
> 
> [1] http://www.infoq.com/news/2009/11/java5_eosl
> [2] http://java.sun.com/javase/6/features.jsp
> 
> Thanks,
> Raymond
> ---
> Raymond Feng
> Apache Tuscany PMC Member: http://tuscany.apache.org
> Co-author of Tuscany In Action (A book on Tuscany SCA): 
> http://tuscanyinaction.com/
> 
> 
> 
Raymond,

This is a good question.

Just a small personal perspective, I've been running Tuscany (and Eclipse and all the other Java 
tools I use) with the Sun JDK 6 for well over a year now and I rarely if ever use JDK 5.

However, the question that we need to ask is what requiring JDK 6 will do to our users. The benefits 
to us as developers are surely second place to that.

It has certainly been the experience of commercial vendors that many users/customers are relatively 
slow to move up to new versions of the JDK - but how much does that apply to an open source project 
such as Tuscany?  One question that must be asked is whether associated tools will have problems if 
we require JDK 6.

Now, I know from personal experience that Eclipse is fine with JDK 6, but there are a lot of other 
tools that people may be using.

I suppose that one route forward here is to simply pose the question on the user mailing list and 
have an associated page on the website, to make as many people as possible aware that we are 
contemplating this change.  Let's see if any users have a problem with leaving JDK 5 behind...


Yours,  Mike.